Baseball statistics include a variety of metrics used to evaluate player and team performance in the sport of baseball.
Baseball is a bat-and-ball sport played between two teams of nine players each, taking turns batting and fielding. The game occurs over the course of several plays, with each play generally beginning when a player on the fielding team, called the pitcher, throws a ball that a player on the batting team, called the batter, tries to hit with a bat. The objective of the offensive team is to hit the ball into the field of play, away from the other team's players, allowing its players to run the bases, having them advance counter-clockwise around four bases to score what are called "runs". The objective of the defensive team is to prevent batters from becoming runners, and to prevent runners' advance around the bases. A run is scored when a runner legally advances around the bases in order and touches home plate.
In baseball, a home run, homerun or homer is scored when the ball is hit in such a way that the batter is able to circle the bases and reach home plate safely in one play without any errors being committed by the defensive team. A home run is usually achieved by hitting the ball over the outfield fence between the foul poles without the ball touching the field.
Rounders is a bat-and-ball game played between two teams. Rounders is a striking and fielding team game that involves hitting a small, hard, leather-cased ball with a wooden, plastic, or metal bat that has a rounded end. The players score by running around the four bases on the field.
Softball is a popular variation of baseball, the difference being that it is played with a larger ball, on a smaller field, and with only underhand pitches permitted. Softball is played competitively at club levels, the college level, and the professional level. The game was first created in 1887 in Chicago by George Hancock.
Extra innings is the extension of a baseball or softball game in order to break a tie.
Kickball is a team sport and league game, similar to baseball. Like baseball, it is a safe haven game in which one team tries to score by having its players return a ball from home base to the field and then circle the bases. Meanwhile, the other team tries to stop them by tagging them "out" with the ball before they can return to home base. However, instead of hitting a small, hard ball with a bat, players kick an inflated rubber ball; this makes it more accessible to young children. As in baseball, teams alternate half-innings. The team with the most runs after a predefined number of innings wins.
Throughout baseball's history, the rules have frequently changed as the game continues to evolve. A few common rules most professional leagues have in common are that four balls are a base on balls, three strikes are a strikeout, and three outs end a half-inning.
In baseball, a pinch hitter (PH) is a substitute batter. Batters can be substituted at any time while the ball is dead ; the manager may use any player who has not yet entered the game as a substitute. Unlike basketball, American football or ice hockey, and in a similar way to association football, baseball does not have a free substitution rule and thus the replaced player is not allowed back into that game. The pinch hitter assumes the spot in the batting order of the player whom he replaces. Pinch hitters are commonly used to replace a weak hitter or to gain a platoon advantage.
Pesäpallo is a fast-moving bat-and-ball sport that is often referred to as the national sport of Finland and has some presence in other places including Germany, Sweden, Switzerland, Australia, and Canada's northern Ontario. It is similar to brännboll, rounders, lapta, and baseball.
Baseball scorekeeping is the practice of recording the details of a baseball game as it unfolds. Professional baseball leagues hire official scorers to keep an official record of each game, but many fans keep score as well for their own enjoyment. Scorekeeping is usually done on a printed scorecard and, while official scorers must adhere precisely to one of the few different scorekeeping notations, most fans exercise some amount of creativity and adopt their own symbols and styles.
Bat-and-ball games, or safe haven games, are field games played by two opposing teams. Action starts when the defending team throws a ball at a dedicated player of the attacking team, who tries to hit it with a bat and then run between various safe areas in the field to score runs (points). The defending team can use the ball in various ways against the attacking team's players to force them off the field when they are not in safe zones, and thus prevent them from further scoring. The best known modern bat-and-ball games are cricket and baseball, with common roots in the 18th-century games played in England.
In baseball, softball, and similar games, an inning is the basic unit of play, consisting of two halves or frames, the "top" and the "bottom". In each half, one team bats until three outs are made, with the other team playing defense. A full baseball game is typically scheduled for nine innings, while softball games consist of seven innings, although this may be shortened due to weather, or extended if the score is tied at the end of the scheduled innings. The use of the term inning in baseball and softball contrasts with cricket and rounders, in which the term is innings in both singular and plural.
Matball, known in some areas as Big Base, is a sport, usually played indoors and sometimes outdoors. Matball is a safe haven game similar to kickball, but with the key difference that bases are larger, often gym mats, and multiple runners can be on each base.
The Corona® All-Star Legends and Celebrity Softball Game is an annual game that brings former Major League Baseball all-stars and celebrities together in a friendly exhibition. The game is played the day before the Home Run Derby. It has been sponsored by MGM Resorts, RadioShack, and Taco Bell; since 2023, Corona is also a sponsor.
The 2000 San Francisco Giants season was the Giants' 118th season in Major League Baseball and their 43rd season in San Francisco since their move from New York following the 1957 season. The Giants finished in first place in the National League West with a record of 97 wins and 65 losses, which was the best record in the major leagues in 2000. They lost the NLDS in four games to the New York Mets. The team played their first season in newly opened Pacific Bell Park. The Giants had 889 runs batted in (RBI), the most in franchise history, while their 925 runs scored is the most in the club's San Francisco era.
The 1912 Detroit Tigers season was a season in American baseball. It involved the Tigers finishing sixth in the American League. It was the team's first season in Tiger Stadium.
The 1954 All-American Girls Professional Baseball League season marked the twelfth and last season of the circuit. The AAGPBL was left with five teams after the Muskegon Belles franchise folded at the end of the past season. As a result, it was the lowest number of teams since its opening season in 1943. The Fort Wayne Daisies, Grand Rapids Chicks, Kalamazoo Lassies, Rockford Peaches and South Bend Blue Sox competed through a 96-game schedule, while the Shaugnessy playoffs featured the top four teams in a best-of-three first round series, with the two winning teams facing in a best-of-five series to decide the championship.
Baseball5 is a simplified variation of baseball and softball which is governed at the international level alongside those sports by the World Baseball Softball Confederation (WBSC).
In sports, the term diamond sports refers to recreational variantsof baseball, a bat-and-ball sport. The most popular and closely related sport to baseball is softball, with the two sports being administered internationally by the World Baseball Softball Confederation (WBSC), alongside Baseball5.
