Fundamentals of Baseball As I open my door and put my Ray Ban sunglasses on, I see a group of young boys standing on the field. The boys are dressed in white pants with blue stripes and orange shirts saying "Southern Bank of Commerce Mets." I stood in front of those young ballplayers and said, "Do y'all know why I am here?" One of the kids said, "No, why?" Your Coach Cook has asked me to come and speak to you about the importance of practicing the fundamentals of baseball. There are three fundamental skills of baseball: hitting, catching, and throwing. Coach Cook asked me to talk to all of you, because he thinks you all do not want to practice. To succeed in baseball, you must practice because repetition is the key. Whenever one repeats an action it becomes customary and easy for one to perform a task. When I was a ballplayer, my teams were very successful because my coaches told us the importance of practicing. One year my coach could not coach us because he did not have the time to do it. That same year the teams were shuffled and everybody had different teammates. My best friend, Wes Cook, made it on my team. Wes was the best player anybody had ever seen. However, He did not enjoy practicing. He thought he could succeed without practicing. Our new coach was laidback at practice. This made Wes especially happy. Coach did not make the team practice hard; we just had to catch fly balls, ground balls, and practice hitting. I batted third after We. My team, the Price Drug Braves, started the season hot; we won our first five games. Wes and I were a great duo. I had the highest batting average for our age group, and he had the second highest. Wes had five homeruns to my two. As the season progressed, we cooled down. Everyday, when I had a chance my dad and I would practice in the batting cages. I would call Wes and ask him if he wanted to come with us and he would tell me that he was busy playing Super Nintendo and Sega Genesis. I would try to tell him that he needed to work on his swing and that I could help him with it.
Baseball is a unique game in which, though it is a team sport; it consists fundamentally on individuals and confrontations between those individuals. From the moment the pitcher gets his sign from the catcher, comes set, and delivers the pitch, it's all between the pitcher and hitter. Present are many fielders in set and ready position on the field, base runners creeping off their bases, and players and coaches watching from the dugout, but during those few seconds, baseball evolves into a two player game. Likewise, on nearly any play - a fly ball, a ground ball, a popup, etc. - all the attention is focused only on the fielder and perhaps the base runner that he will attempt to throw out. Every play that is, except for the squeeze.
Right now in America, the world of sports is constantly changing and growing to make the sports safer and fairer. People want sports to be as exciting and thrilling as before, but without the human error that may turn some baseball fans away. Along with this fear, people also want every sport to be as fair as possible, and by doing this most sports have incorporated an instant replay rule. This spring will be the first that the review rule will be in effect, it is a radical decision and game changing because baseballs history is so rich and its structured has not been changed in so long. These changes are not without skepticism though because people believe that the game has been so successful and before being “fair” was not the biggest priority of the game. By adding this rule, baseball’s fairness will be protected in a way it was not previously, but this set of rules is not without skepticism by people who believe there is nothing wrong with the game now.
The most important part of being a good pitcher is throwing strikes. With out that you will not be able to get hitters out and you will walk everyone. To throw strikes you have to have a good wind up and delivery. After you have your fastball mastered you can begin to throw different pitches such as a curveball, change up, or slider.
The Soft ball sport was invented in 1887 in Chicago, America, it was developed from the game of baseball, however a larger ball is used, and the field is smaller. Pitching is another difference between baseball and softball, in softball the pitcher pitches under arm whereas baseball is overhand. The name softball was only developed in 1926, the years before 1926 many names were given to the game such as ‘ladies baseball’, ‘kitten ball’, ‘mush ball’ and a number of others.
As the clock struck 3:15 we began warming and limbering our muscles. I stretched my legs as far as they would go to the side and reached for the grass. I ran my fingers through the grass and counted along with the team. I felt my legs slowly begin to loosen with each stretch and sprint that we did. Following our series of warm-ups we began playing catch Pop! The sound of a ball hitting leather filled the outfield. As our coaches approached the throwing stopped and the field returned to silence, the buzz of anticipation in the air. Coach McGownd and our assistant Lori gave us a run-down of the practice plan, which included infield-outfield (IO), hitting drills, fielding drills and various base running drills. As he spoke, a few of the upperclassmen whispered back and forth amongst themselves. I caught bits and pieces of phrases like “come on it’s just the first day” and “how about no”. I stood drinking in every word and ignoring their muttered curses. I had never played softball and was determined to learn as much as I possibly could about the game. Coach McGownd asked us to go to a position we thought we might want to play. I ventured across the field and stood by first base. My parents and a few of my friends had told me that I would make a good first baseman so that seemed like the best choice to me. I had no clue how to actually play the position. My emotions ran amuck, ultimately stopping at optimistic.
Fielding a baseball while relaxed makes it 10,000 times easier than fielding the ball all tense and nervous. I just tell myself over and over in my head to stay relaxed and do not think too much. After I relax myself I start to come in on the ball and be aggressive with it, I always remember Coach Davidson telling me to not let the ball play me, take the easy hops and stay aggressive with it. "For starters, charging forward and attacking a ground ball cuts down on bad hops and allows you to keep the ball in front of your body" (Clark & Tulowitzki). Being aggressive greatly improves many players fielding skills, like Troy Tulowitzki who loves persistent aggression when fielding ground balls. He committed only 6 errors in the 2011 season which gave him a .991 fielding percentage, an elite percentage in baseball. Coming into the ball with rhythm and small steps also helps me out a great deal, "That is, Right foot, Left foot, Field the ball. This is the rhythm you want to have as you field the baseball. It will keep you squared up to the ball," (Bernier). I like to think of this reminder while I field baseballs because not only does it give me a good tempo but it also helps keep my fielding smooth and
Americans began playing baseball on informal teams, using local rules, in the early 1800s. By the 1860s, the sport, unrivaled in popularity, was being described as America's "national pastime." Alexander Joy Cartwright of New York invented the modern baseball field in 1845. Alexander Cartwright and the members of his New York Knickerbocker Base Ball Club devised the first rules and regulations for the modern game of baseball.
Baseball. To some people, that means the game starts at 5. For others, it means the American pastime. And for people like me, it means a game with a bat and ball. But baseball isn’t only about hitting the ball with a bat, like every game, there are rules. Before rules can be discussed, we must first know how to play the game of baseball. The game can be divided into 4 simple sections:
There is so much technology all across the world like in sports, homes, stores and schools. Technology can be used for many things but this paper will show how it can be used in America's Pastime, Baseball.
The first rule of baseball, its not about if you win or lose, it's how you play the game. Elite Athletes are driven by competition and risks are often taken as needed to stay on top of the game. They sacrifice their lives for this lifestyle, breaking bones, deep cuts, huge bruises, and they put their body's to the point of failing. Performing Enhancer Drugs (P.E.D) are seemingly popular nowadays and with new and undetectable variety's coming out rapidly, it's hard to keep up. Should the World Anti- Doping Agency (WADA) just allow it?
The first step to mastering the art of catching is to be physically and mentally prepared. It starts by having the proper equipment. This is more of a preference than anything. One should feel comfortable behind the plate while being well protected. It is also important to have the desire to fill the role of the catcher on a team. This simply means one must be knowledgeable in what he or she is doing while also having the motivation to play the position.
I remember one time going out to the mound to talk with Bob Gibson. He told me to get back behind the batter, that the only thing I knew about pitching was it was hard to hit. ... Tim McCarver, St. Louis Cardinals catcher, 1972. Most people do not understand pitching, the mechanics, the situations and the how’s and why’s. Today we are going to talk about a few of these.
Baseball is a great game to analyze from game theory perspective because of the scale of strategic decisions that are continuously made on the fields and each play. In every play, there are various players (baseball players, coaches, team managers and owners) with different goals and payoffs, and thousands of pitch-by-pitch decisions are made in course of an at-bat, inning, game, and season.
Whether it is the angle needed to swing the bat, the force needed to kick the ball, or the speed needed to run, physics is present in every aspect of every sport. Players become aware at a young age that physics will be a part of their lives for as long as they play a sport, even if they are not aware of it. From the moment a child starts a sport, the many different methods used to improve revolve around physics. Softball is a prime example of this. Physics plays a role in softball because every aspect of this sport requires a certain momentum and force. Players must aim to achieve the skill to be able to use the physics behind the sport to their advantage. Through the use of hitting, catching, and throwing a softball, there is the need to
When I turned six years old I was old enough to play on a Little League team, and my father volunteered to be the coach. He worked long hours but always found enough time to dedicate to the team. At first our team was not very good, but that would soon change. My father practiced us hard every week and by the end of the season we made the playoffs. Even though we did not win the Championship that year, our team had reason to be proud. We won a few games, and we had a lot of fun, thanks to my dad. I played baseball for a total of ten years, and he was my coach for at least half of them.