Baseball
Thanks for joining us!
This episode was written by Kara and voiced by Kara and T.
Episode art was created by Jean.
It was originally released in May 2024.
— Baseball Episode Summary —
It’s baseball season! —
In the United States, spring brings the start of baseball season!
We bet that somewhere near your home there’s a baseball field. Maybe at a school or a park, or even a stadium where professional teams play.
When we go to a stadium to watch a team, we don’t play, we sit in the stands and cheer on our team. And maybe even have a yummy snack : ) What’s your favorite ballpark snack?
Each team has their own uniform, with certain colors. And they usually have a name that references the area that they’re from, and a character as a mascot.
Some fun mascots include the San Francisco Giants’s Lou Seal the seal (because their stadium is by the bay), the Philadelphia Phillies’s Phillie Phanatic, the Toronto Blue Jays’s bird Ace, Detroit Tigers’s tiger Paws, and Mr. & Mrs. Met for the New York Mets.
How do you win a baseball game? —
When playing baseball, you’re trying to score a run. Each run gets one point. The team with the most runs/points at the end of the game, wins.
You get a run by running around and touching all of the bases. You have to run around them in a certain order – from home to 1st, 2nd, 3rd base, and then back to home.
The bases are in the corners of the baseball diamond, which is part of the field. We bet you’ve heard the word diamond in other parts of your life too!
Batting and fielding —
Throughout the game, each of two teams is either “at bat / “batting” or “in the field” / “fielding”.
When you’re at bat, you’re trying to hit a ball and score runs. Which is tough because the ball is tiny and it’s thrown really fast!
If you swing and miss 3 times, you get 3 strikes, and you’re out. When there are 3 outs in a game, you switch sides and the other team has a chance to bat.
A pitcher throws the ball for the batter to hit. If they don’t throw it in the right spot over home plate, and the batter doesn’t swing, then it’s called a ball. (Which is such a silly term for it, because there’s already a ball in this game!)
If the batter hits the ball (yay!) and it soars into the field, the fielders on the other team are waiting to catch it and get the runner out. There are nine players spread all over the field when the team is fielding.
The players who are fielding wear a glove or mitt to help them catch the ball.
Baseball games usually have 9 innings. During an inning, each team gets a chance to be at bat and in the field. If there’s a tied score at the end of 9 innings, the teams go into extra innings! Baseball games don’t end in a tie.
Baseball’s history and future —
Baseball has been played in the United States for almost 200 years. That means it was around before the car, before the phone, before the TV was invented.
The rules and way of playing have changed a little bit over the years, and some players have helped make those changes happen. Babe Ruth played 100 years ago and became famous as one of the best hitters of all time when he was on the New York Yankees. Before Jackie Robinson started to play for the Brooklyn Dodgers in 1947, black Americans weren’t allowed to play professional baseball.
Now, there are people from all over the world who play baseball in their countries, and who come to the United States to play in our major leagues. We have lots of players from Latin America, especially the Dominican Republic and Venezuela.
Baseball is most popular in the United States, but it’s also a big deal in Japan! In their country it’s called “fieldball or “yakyu”. And they have their own professional leagues.
One of the most exciting players right now is Shohei Ohtani, who played in Japan before coming to the United States. He’s gotten awards like “rookie of the year” and “most valuable player”. He’s a great hitter and pitcher, which is rare and hard. And he switched teams from the Los Angeles Angels to the Los Angeles Dodgers for the 2024 season. Let’s see how it goes!