Baseball

Kevin Hetrick

7th Period

2-22-07

Baseball

Baseball is a sport that is played with a bat and a baseball on a grass or artificial surface. Two teams play at a time with nine players on each team. The ball is thrown from the pitching mound (which is located 60 feet and 6 inches away from the batter) to home plate. A batter standing next to home plate will usually either take a full swing at the ball with the bat he is carrying or he will bunt which is when the batter holds his bat over home plate and tries to just nudge the ball into play.

The game consists of nine innings, each consisting of 6 outs, 3 per team. To get an out, you either need to throw the ball to the base that the batter is running or you need to strike the batter out. The strike a batter out, the pitcher has to throw three pitches past the batter that are considered in the strike zone (an area between the batters knees and shoulder over home plate). There are also many ways to get on base but the main ones are walks, which is whenever the pitcher throws 4 pitches that are not in the strike zone. Another way is hitting the ball in to play and reaching 1st base with out getting tagged.

After the batter hits the ball, he runs to first base but one of the fielders could pick up the hit ball and throw it to the first baseman that can get the batter out by tagging him of touching the bag. After the batter reaches first base safely he can either run to second base or he can stay at first until the ball is hit by the next batter. A team score when ever someone that is on base reaches home after touching all three other bases.

The largest tournament is Baseball is the World Series, which is played between the champions of the American League and the champions of the National League. The champions are decided