Baseball: It makes no sense...

How does baseball work? Ok i have a basic idea but i tried watching it on channel 5 in the UK and i found it to be sooo slow and weird to be honest.
Either that or im thick as long as there are no women references for me being slow its all good

i have tried to think a way of explaining the game of baseball, simply and understandably for a couple of hours now and have not been able to figure out a way to do it, i think the best method would be to direct you to this link and then we can try to answer any questions for you, this link seems to do a pretty good job

eteamz.active.com...

As i heard 'a man with 4 balls' wouldn't be able to walk properly...

The rules are not that bad, they are quite simple. Good link Tj !

Originally posted by TRD


The rules are not that bad, they are quite simple. Good link Tj !

ok then explain the infield fly rule in 50 words or less.

The infield fly rule hrmmm...

Its invoked to get 2 outs instead on 1 when the ball is popped-up in the infield. I think there has to be less than two outs with runners on the bases or all bases covered.

I dunno the full ins and out but thats the best i can do off the top of my head!

with runners on first and second or the bases loaded with less than 2 outs if the batter hits a pop fly that can reasonably be cought by an infielder the batter is out automaticaly and the runners advance at their own risk

43 words...LOL

it is called so that the infielder doesn't intenrionally let a pop fly drop at his feet and the runners are helpless to prevent force outs

ok ive read that last rule and yep it makes no sense to me

ok, in the above situation the runners have to run or they will be forced out at the next base, if they do run the fielder catches the easy pop up and they are dead ducks because they ran on a fly out. if they don't run the fielder lets the ball drop and the runners are easily forced for a double play or even a triple play, the runners are between a rock and a hard place...they are wrong whatever they do, this rule takes that possibility off the table...

Originally posted by toejam
with runners on first and second or the bases loaded with less than 2 outs if the batter hits a pop fly that can reasonably be cought by an infielder the batter is out automaticaly and the runners advance at their own risk

43 words...LOL

Excellent work TJ, the only person i had ever heard explain it well in under 50 words was Bob Costas but he's in a class all by himself. Again good job.

This is an interesting topic. I met a guy from Belgium who had never seen baseball played. Once you start trying to explain the rules and the exceptions, they seem to be endless. In many respects it is an extremely complex game.

Take the fundamental balls and strikes: A foul ball is a strike unless it's the third, unless its an attempted bunt; but a caught foul tip strike is a strikeout; a third strike not caught by the catcher allows the runner to try to take 1st base, unless the catahcer can throw him out first and if he doesn't its still a strikeout.

You teach somebody something, and then a minute later, say, yeah, but not then - it only applies when...

baseball is the simplest game...you throw the ball, a guy hits the ball, another guy catches the ball, it is at the same time the most complex game....the rules, not to mention the strategy involved with what is going on which affects all of the above...i thought hard and long on how to describe baseball and couldn't do it....
a boss i had one time said the hardest assignment he had in college was to write a paper explaining to someone how to tie their shoe....i would have to agree

^^^^shoeless Joe tj...