Baseball

People hear this word almost every day, because it is one of the most spread sport games. This game is especially popular in USA.

It appeared in the USA in the beginning of the 19th century. They say that the English game called "Rounders" was the base of this game. This game is still played in Ireland.

Baseball is the game with a ball and a bat. Two teams of 9 persons (sometimes 10 persons) compete with each other.

The first official game was played in New York in 1820. In twenty years the first professional baseball club was created. This game is especially popular in the USA, Canada, Mexico, Latin America, Japan and other countries. Nowadays more than 120 countries of the world play baseball. The Championships are held all over the world.

Softball is a variation of baseball but much easier to play. It may be played indoors and doesn't require the field of big size.

Sport game that is similar to baseball is cricket. There are also variations of baseball adapted to each country, for example lapta in Russia, pesapolo in France, etc.

In 2005 baseball as well as softball was excluded from the program of Olympic Games. There were several reasons for such decision. First of all baseball was not rather popular in Europe. Besides, some argues appeared between the Olympic Committee and The baseball League of the USA, USA refused to stop the national championships while the Olympic Games were held.

Two teams take part in this game; they change each other in attacks and defence. The aim of the game is to get as much runs as possible. A team gets the point when a player of the attacking team runs two bases situated in the corners of the field.

The equipment necessary for this game is a playground that is usually a field with special marking-out, a ball that has a size of a fist and usually of white colour, and a bat.

There are a lot of terms used in this game that are universal for this sport's game. Here are some of them:

Out – a situation that means that a player of attack is got out from a game in this period.

Outfielder – a player of a defence team that guards the out field.

Bunt – a short shot after which a ball gets falls in a meter from the base.

Balk – is the helper of arbiter that tells to the head-arbiter about mistakes of pitchers.

Double – is a shot in the result of which a batter has gained to run up to the second base.

Inning is a period of the game.

Baseball is not so popular as football and boxing in the world, but still is played in many countries of the world. It was excluded from the Olympic program but the discussion about including it into Olympic sport's program is not stopped till nowadays.