The Court and the Players
The fan-shaped court is composed of two parts, namely the square infield and the rest outfield. In the middle of the infield, a circle-shaped place is functioned as the pitcher's plate, where the people standing here, called pitcher, throws the baseball to start the game. The teammates of the pitcher are in defense, or more specificlly, wearing glove, standing respectively at the bases, the ends of the infield square, with the one standing at the end of fan as catcher, and in the outfield. For the two rectangles in the home base, batters stand there. Every time one batter stands on the spot, and his teammates will wait in lounge.
The Game Process
The pitcher throw the ball towards the home base, in order to be catched by the catcher rather than being hit by the batter. This process called a pitch. Easy as it seems, a good pitcher demands a great amount of training. He should avoid the ball hitting on the body of the batter, or the batter will get a free-pass to the first base. He should also try to make every pitch a fair ball, rather than a foul ball. What divides a fair ball and a foul ball is whether the ball pass the range of the strike zone. And the umpire will judge it. The strike zone is a rectangle space, composed of the overlapping space made by the length of the home base and the height between midpoint and hollow beneath kneecap of the batter. Every ball passing the space of the strike zone or on the side of the rectangle is defined as a fair ball.
Strike and Ball
When the pitcher made a fair ball and the batter didn't swing or missed, this situation is counted as a strike. When the pitcher made a foul ball and the batter didn't swing, it is called a ball. But if the batter hits a foul ball, it is also counted as a strike. Three strikes will strikeout the batter, while four balls will give the batter a free-pass to the first base.
When the batter hit the ball, he should run as fast as he can to arrive the base from the first to the home base orderly, until the defense player get the ball. If he is so lucky or strong that the ball flys out of the court or even to the spectator seats, he don't have to rush but circles the infield and finally get on the home base without stress. If a batter can get on the homebase with one attempt, he made a home run. Every time when a batter succeed to get on the home base, this team will score one. It is called one run, run referring to the point. If there has been three outs, then a round is over. And a round in baseball is called an inning. There are nine innings in a game if there is no extra innings, which happen when the two team tied. The home team and the vistor team will play the role of offense and defense in turn. The one who gets higher runs will win the game. If tied, the two will play extra innings.
