From Talk:Baseball:
Baseball is notoriously difficult to understand for those who are not familiar with it. I don't think I lack the necessary intellectual or language abilities, but from the description in the article I failed to understand the rules or even more basically, what the game is about and how it is played. It seems that the reader is expected to have a fundamental knowledge of the game and its jargon. I would therefore like to ask a number of basic questions. (Yes, I have never seen a game of baseball, and no, I am not trying to annoy anybody, I am just honestly curious).
Play of the Game As the game starts, the home team takes the field, while the visitors come to bat. After making three outs, the visitors take the field and the home team bats.
What's an "out"? What does "batting" mean? What is the game about? Where are the players' positions?
The basic contest is always between the pitcher, who tries to throw the ball so it cannot be cleanly hit, and the batter, who tries to hit the pitched ball with a rounded bat. If the batter hits a "fair ball" into the field of play, the hitter runs to first base
What are the bases? What do they look like?
and any of his teammates who are already "on the bases" may attempt to advance to another base. There are four bases, named in counterclockwise order, first base, second base, third base and home base or home plate. Baserunners must always progress in order from first base to second, third, and then home, touching each base along the way, in order to score a run. If a baserunner is already on first base, they must try to advance or the batter will be out
What does "will be out" mean?
no two offensive players may ever stay on the same base. If the ball is caught before it bounces
What does "bounce" mean here? Bounce on the ground?
or the ball is fielded
What does "fielded" mean?
and thrown to a base before a runner arrives there, the player is out, and must return to his team's dugout.
What's the "dugout"? A team area?
The initial decision to make first base 90 feet from home plate was an inspired one; it means that no runner, no matter how fast, can beat the throw to first of a ball cleanly fielded and properly thrown to first by a fielder in proper position.
"no runner (...) can beat the throw to first of a ball cleanly fielded" What does this mean?
But if the fielder is out of position, or hesitates, or throws wide of the base, the play is often razor-close, and quite exciting. There is also an imaginary area above "home plate" (where the batter stands) between the batter's knees and chest called the "strike zone". (Actually the "strike zone" varies a good bit depending on the league level of the teams and is relatively frequently re-defined by league rules makers.) Any pitch which passes through this area is a "strike", as is any pitch at which the batter swings and misses. If a batter records 3 strikes before putting the ball in play, he is out - called a strikeout. (An exception is if the third strike evades the catcher
Who is the catcher, where does he stand, what does he do?
but this rarely occurs.) Any pitch which is not a strike is called a Ball. A batter who receives 4 balls from a pitcher may walk to first base and cannot be tagged out. This is called a "walk." A batter may also move to first base if he is struck by a pitched ball, unless he puts himself in the path of the pitch and makes no attempt to avoid being struck. In addition, if a player does make contact with the ball but does not hit a fair ball
What's a "fair ball"?
this is called a foul ball. Whether a ball hit is fair or foul is defined by two lines at a right angle, drawn to the side of the diamond, and by two poles, located to the left and the right of the outfield.
It's still not clear what a "fair ball" is.
Also, anytime the player hits the ball backward and it leaves the play area, this is called a foul. Fouls also count as strikes, unless the player has two strikes already when hitting the foul, in which case the player must go at bat for one more turn. If a foul ball is caught by a defensive player before it bounces, then the hitter is out.
Which team is the defensive one?
After three outs (a "half-inning") the roles of the fielding and hitting sides are reversed. Usually, nine innings are played.
This implicitly defines what an inning is, but an explicit explanation would be better.
The aim of the game is to score more runs than the opposing team. If both teams have scored the same number of runs at the end of 9 innings, an extra inning is added to the game. If the score remains tied, another inning is added. This process repeats until the score is no longer tied at the end of an inning. Thus, the team which hits in the second (or "bottom") half of the inning always has a chance to respond to a run scored by the team batting in the first (or "top") half. As there are tactical advantages to this, the home team is always granted the right to bat in the bottom half of the inning. In the American Major Leagues, baseball games end with tie scores only because conditions (e.g. severe weather) have made it impossible to continue play. Games in which the score is tied are not counted towards a team's game total (as technically a tie game is considered as unfinished), although statistics are retained as long as the game is of official regulation (five half innings for each team; only four for the home team if the home team is ahead). In Japan, games end after nine innings and a tie is considered honorable to both teams. Some leagues, especially youth leagues, will end a game if one team is ahead by 10 or more runs, so as not to further humiliate the other team.
There's much more that I don't understand, but if these questions could be clarified, it might be possible for a reader with no prior knowledge of the game to understand at least the very basics. I am a little afraid that my questions might look trollish to someone who's grown up with baseball, but I am just curious. Kosebamse 16:02, 26 Oct 2003 (UTC)
PS: The text mentioned above by Dominus (at http://www.plover.com/~mjd/misc/baseball) seems to help a lot. I am not qualified to integrate it, but it would help a lot. Thanks, Kosebamse 16:20, 26 Oct 2003 (UTC)
I've changed the "Leagues" section to "Professional leagues", and fleshed it out a bit. Previously, it was just a little blurb about how there's a National League and an American League, and included an irrelevant (IMHO) bit about the designated hitter rule in the AL. We probably should include something about the DH - it's used in the American League, most minor leagues, and at the collegiate level in the United States - but that particular section was not the right place for it. -- Jim Redmond 22:12, 11 Nov 2003 (UTC)
It looks like this article has made much progress - perhaps it's time to move it to Baseball? There is still some stuff left to do (the rest of dominus' text should perhaps be integrated somehow, and some cleaning up, like italicizing technical terms only the first time they occur), but on the whole I guess it is now ready to be moved. What do you think? Kosebamse 16:32, 9 Dec 2003 (UTC)
Agree on that - Dominus' text was extremely helpful, and we can leave what's left of it in the talk page in case somebody would like to use it. And while there is of course some work left to do, methinks the rewritten text looks already quite nice (and it is certainly better that the current baseball), so I would suggest to move it soon. My proposal: wait another week and then move - what's left to do can be done irrespective of where the text resides. Kosebamse 17:35, 10 Dec 2003 (UTC)
But we did assimilate very much of Dominus' text already - what you see on top of baseball/temp is just the small remains of his original text. I just thought the bulk of the rewrite is done now, and what's left must not necessarily be done here on a "/temp" page. Kosebamse 22:16, 19 Dec 2003 (UTC)
I was asked to comment on whether I (being that anonymous user who keeps putting up baseball player biographies) thought this was ready to be moved to the main baseball page or not, and thought rather than alter straight up something you folks have obviously been working very hard on for some time now, I'd put my concerns and opinions here for discussion first. If you feel I'm being too discreet, I'll happily edit away. (Most of it looks good, at any rate.)
To me, this makes it sound as though the playing area is typically infinite, rather than just theoretically infinite, as if the game is played on an endless wedge of land. Also, the way 'universe' draws upon the mathematical understanding of the word (meaning everything that applies to a given set, in this case, the set of all land area) may be ambiguous to the casual reader. I can see somebody being baffled at what the 'universe' is meant to mean.
Gender neutrality, I think, is important. This isn't just a man's game.
Overall, I think the descriptions are very much biased towards Major League Baseball rather than baseball in general - which should include the kind of baseball you pick up and play with your friends, as well, whether you have nine players, a few more, or a few less. This is also important, I think, in describing the positions - the positions are not immutable. The only thing which cannot change in baseball is the batting line-up. You could, theoretically, have your 4 outfielders and 3 infielders, although typically that isn't preferred. So I think there is some room for generalization, but not so much that I think it can't be dealt with as the main page.
I've got to say, I love the bit about baseball's capacity to create heroes and goats, how pitchers are under so much pressure to make the perfect pitch, and batters only have a second to respond. It's the individual match-ups, after all, which make baseball unique and wonderful.
-- Matty j 06:30, Dec 24, 2003 (UTC)