BASEBALL

Governed internationally by the International Baseball Federation (IBAF), baseball is an offense/defense bat-and-ball team sport. Baseball, like softball, is unlike most other competitive sports in that the defense is given control of the ball. The number of players on the field at any given time is lopsided heavily in favor of the defense, which always has nine players on the field, while the offense has between one and four. Each team assigns nine defensive players [See position player] on the field of play to face the other team's (the "opponents") players who are engaged in batting and baserunning.

The action begins with a head-to-head battle between the pitcher and the batter, who is positioned in the batter's box. The batter's box is the place where the batter stands when ready to receive a pitch from the pitcher. The aim for the offense is to score more runs than the opponents runs by hitting a thrown ball from the pitcher with a bat and arriving safely to a counter-clockwise series of four bases: first, second, third and home plate. A run is scored when the runner advances past the three bases and returns "home", as home plate is set next to the batter's box.

Players on the batting team take turns hitting against the pitcher of the fielding team, which tries to prevent runs by getting hitters out in any of several ways. A player on the batting team can stop at any of the bases and later advance via a teammate's hit or other means. The teams switch between batting and fielding whenever the fielding team records three outs. One turn at bat for both teams, beginning with the visiting team, constitutes an inning, and nine innings comprise a standard professional game. The team with the most runs at the end of the game wins.