How to understand baseball gracefully

Yingxianjun teaches you how to understand baseball gracefully.

Baseball is one of the three major American sports (rugby, baseball and basketball).Although the NBA is more well known by domestic fans, the actual influence and popularity of baseball in the United States exceeds that of basketball.That’s why NBA legend Michael Jordan changed his career to play baseball after the first bull won three consecutive championships.

However, the rules of baseball are complicated and seem to be less coherent than basketball games and less intense than football games, so people who are not familiar with baseball will find baseball games very boring, while baseball fans will find it very exciting.That’s why people say, "if you love someone, send him to watch baseball, because it’s heaven;" If you hate someone, send him to watch baseball, because it is hell. "

In fact, it is not difficult to understand baseball, and once you know what the baseball game is all about, it is a natural thing to love it.In this article, Ying Xianjun will tell you how to understand baseball gracefully.

In fact, the fate between Yingxianjun and baseball can be traced back to childhood.Yingxianjun was deeply influenced by Japanese comics when he was young. From "Robot Cat" to "Dragon Ball" to "You You Bai Shu", the comics of that era were almost unobstructed.Among them, Baseball Hero (also known as Girl Next Door, English name is Touch) can definitely rank among the top three favorite comics of Shang Ying Xian Jun. Whether it’s comic books or cartoons, Baseball Hero won’t let you down. Such a cartoon with baseball as the background is full of youthful and ignorant passion, growing scars and ideal pursuit, which is a rare masterpiece.Uesugi Tatsuya, who plays around at ordinary times but gets serious at critical moments, will frighten people to death, and Minami Asakura, the girl next door with an absolutely ideal girlfriend in those days, and Nanfeng Coffee Shop full of youthful breath, are all like vivid individuals who really live around you.Let you be in a trance like a dream, and embark on the journey of pursuing your ideals with them. And that sentence "I want to take you to Koshien" became the most romantic confession line of the year. Yingxianjun will write a cartoon article on Baseball Heroes in the later period, which is really full of memories of youth.

So get down to business, how do you understand baseball? Ying Xianjun here uses a rap song "The Second Half of the Ninth inning" by MC Hotdog to help you understand baseball.First of all, understand the basic pattern of baseball game. The baseball game is divided into nine innings, and each inning is divided into two top and bottom innings.Therefore, the meaning of the song name "the second half of the ninth inning" is very clear, which is roughly equivalent to 80 minutes in the second half of a football game or 6 minutes in the fourth quarter of an NBA game.The singer’s actual expression of his youth is drawing to a close, fully expressing his helplessness and sadness over the passage of time.

In baseball, two teams attack and defend alternately.The attacker is hit by a batter every time. After hitting the ball, the batter’s task is to start from home plate, pass through first base, second base and third base in a counterclockwise direction, and finally return to home plate, and make a full circle and return to home plate to score a Run.But it’s not that you can run straight back to home plate to score after hitting the ball once (this situation that allows you to run straight for a lap is called home run).As the old saying goes, "You should eat the rice bit by bit and walk step by step".So slowly and steadily, go to one base at a time, and then the next teammate will create opportunities to go to another base, step by step, until you score.So baseball is a high IQ project that fully embodies teamwork.

The purpose of the defender is to prevent the attacker from scoring. The defense team consists of nine players. The following picture shows the field specifications of the baseball field. The defense consists of Pitcher, Catcher, first baseman, second baseman, third baseman, Short Stop, Left Fielder, Center Fielder and Right Fielder, respectively.

Briefly introduce American professional baseball. Major League Baseball (MLB) in the United States is an association organization of professional basketball, which can be understood as NBA by analogy. MLB is divided into American League and National League, which can be roughly understood as the east and west of NBA. However, AL and NL have their own three sub-regions: East, Middle and West. Every season is from April to October, and each of the 30 major league teams has 162 regular-season games. After that, the champion of each division and the two wild cards of each league entered the playoffs, and then the remaining two teams competed for the championship of the World Series.

The first lesson of baseball is to make it clear that the gloved people standing on the court are in the same group, but the swinging people are not in the same group.The person who swings the bat is the attacker. The purpose of the attacker is to hit the ball thrown by the pitcher where the gloved people can’t pick it up, and then run to the corresponding next base before they pick it up and pass it back to the bag, which is called safe base.This stroke is called a Hit. At this time, you can stay there and wait for the next player of your own team to play, and go on and on (so the attacker can have up to four people on the court at any time, occupying home plate batting position, first base, second base and third base respectively).However, if the swinger hits the ball and runs to first base, and the gloved defender has already returned the ball to the first baseman before he reaches first base, then the swinger is out.

Once the attacker is out of the game for a half game, the half game is over and the two sides exchange offense and defense. Therefore, the "two outs, full bases, two good and three bad" mentioned in MC Hotdog’s song is a very tense state of adversity.So what does "two good and three bad" mean? Here, the camera switches to the home plate hitting zone. When the Batter stands in the home plate batting area and confronts the defensive pitcher, it is a contest between the reaction speed and arm strength of both sides.The home plate at home plate is a pentagon. Imagine a three-dimensional figure with the pentagon as the base and the distance from the batter’s knee to his shoulder as high. This area is called the strike zone.

A pitcher who throws a baseball within the Strike zone is called a strike. If the flight route of three baseball throws passes through this area and the batter fails to hit the ball, then the batter will be struck out. A Ball that a pitcher throws without crossing the strike zone is called a bad ball. And if the pitcher fails to cross the strike zone four times, it is judged as a four-ball. Then the batter is automatically walked to first base at this time (you can walk slowly and don’t need to run in a hurry).

So when "two outs, two good and three bad", if the attacker is still full (meaning that the first, second and third bases are occupied by the attacker), the pressure on the pitcher is actually great.It’s better to throw a good ball. Three opponents are out. The half game is over and the danger alarm is lifted. However, if this ball is a bad one, then the opponent will be automatically walked to base. At this time, the batter has first base, the player who was on first base goes to second base, and so on. The player who was on third base returns to home base, and the attacker gets a share. At this time, if the thrown ball is hit by the opponent’s home run, then at this time, because there are people on the third base, if the batter is counted, all of them will go around the home plate and attack the opponent’s four points.This kind of home run is called a Grand Slam.

Of course, for the batter, it is very uncomfortable to be struck out, so it is a great sadness for MC Hotdog to sing "I was a pitcher and was struck out by myself" in the song.

Here, we need to summarize the judgment of counting good balls and bad balls in different situations:

The baseball flew across the strike zone and the batter didn’t swing.

As long as the batter misses his swing, whether the baseball flies over the strike zone or not, it is a good ball.

The batter hit the baseball with his swing, but the ball flew out of bounds and was counted as a good one.

(However, if you have already struck two strikes, swinging the ball out of bounds will not count as a strike.)

The baseball’s flight path did not cross the strike zone, and the batter did not swing.

In addition, it should be noted that the attacker on the court can not run to base only after the pitcher throws the ball and then hits it. But as long as there is no foul ball, or walking to the base to wait for the ball, people on the first, second and third bases can always run to the next base bag before the pitcher throws the ball.This behavior is called Steal, and if you get on the base successfully, steal the base successfully. Stealing bases is a great test of a player’s judgment on the situation on the court and his running speed. That’s why baseball surprises you so much.

Just mentioned a lot of home runs, so what does home run mean?A Home Run, or home run, means that the batter hits the ball high and far and flies directly over the fence. At this time, the defender can’t get the ball back, so everyone on the base, including the batter, automatically returns to home plate to score.Of course, it is not easy to hit a home run. A professional baseball player may not hit a few home runs in his whole career. Of course, excellent players also exist.The record holder of the most home runs in his career is Barry Bonds, a legendary player of the San Francisco Giants, who hit 762 home runs in his career. In professional baseball, players who have scored more than 500 home runs in their careers are listed as 500 Home Run Club. The closest member to us is David Ortiz, the head of the Boston Red Sox. He retired on October 2, 2016, and held a grand retirement ceremony for him at Fenway Stadium, the home of Red Sox in Boston. Ying Xianjun was lucky enough to go to the scene to watch his retirement battle, which was still very shocking.

Photographed on October 2, 2016 at Fenway Stadium in Boston.

Then let’s review the knowledge points by knowing the scoreboard of baseball games.The following is the match between Oakland Athletics and Los Angeles Angels. At present, the score is 5 to 3. The 5th and an upward triangle indicate that it is the first half of the fifth inning. The yellow diamond in the middle indicates that the attacker is Oakland, and they are currently occupied at second base. 2-1 shows that this batter is two bad balls and one good ball at present. 1 Out indicates that Oakland is currently out by one person.

With the above basic knowledge, you can basically understand what baseball is like gracefully. Instead of wondering what a group of people are doing after throwing a ball and running around.

Two eggs are attached here. The first egg is what if you play nine innings and still draw? Will there be overtime?The answer is yes. If the nine games are tied, then one extra game will be played, and the tenth game will be continued. If the game is still tied, one more game will be played until the game is decided.

Here, as MC Hotdog sang, "life is a baseball game. After nine innings, will there be an overtime?" There is overtime in the game, but life can’t be repeated. There is no overtime. So we should cherish the present and watch baseball carefully.

The second egg. Careful readers may have found a problem. When the batter hits the ball directly over the fence and the first landing point is off the court, the ball is counted as a home run. What if the first landing point of the ball is on the court and then bounces off the court?This is the famous "Ground Rule Double". If this happens, all the attacking players on the field will automatically advance to the second base. If the attacker has someone on the third base, he will return to home plate and score. If there is someone on the second base, he will still go forward two bases and return to home plate and score.

On June 12th, 2017, Boston Red Sox played a long game with Philadelphia Phillies. The score was tied at 5:5 until the 12th Inning. Finally, the Red Sox scored a "Ground Rule Double" and beat Philadelphia by one point. Ying Xianjun also went to the scene to watch the game, and the game didn’t end until 00:30 in the morning. It was really exhausting to watch.

The above content is enough to help you understand baseball gracefully, and I wish you further and further on the road to becoming a baseball fan. Maybe one day Young-hyun Jun will meet you by chance at a baseball game.

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