User:Djrobgordon/sandbox

The Baseball Portal

Baseball is a sport played between two teams usually of nine players each. It is a bat-and-ball game in which a pitcher throws (pitches) a hard, fist-sized, leather-covered ball toward a batter on the opposing team. The batter attempts to hit the baseball with a tapered cylindrical bat, made of wood (as required in professional baseball) or a variety of other materials (as allowed in many nonprofessional games). A team scores runs only when batting, by advancing its players—primarily via hits—counterclockwise past a series of four markers called bases arranged at the corners of a ninety-foot square, or "diamond." The game, played without time restriction, is structured around nine segments called innings. In each inning, both teams are given the opportunity to bat and score runs; a team's half-inning ends when three outs are recorded against that team.

Baseball on both the professional and amateur levels is popular in North America, Central America, parts of South America, parts of the Caribbean, and East Asia. The modern version of the game developed in North America beginning in the eighteenth century. The consensus of historians is that it evolved from earlier bat-and-ball games, such as rounders, brought to the continent by British and Irish immigrants. By the late nineteenth century, baseball was widely recognized as the national sport of the United States. The game is sometimes referred to as hardball to differentiate it from similar sports such as softball. (more...)

Did you know...

• Added together, Mordecai Brown, Jim Abbott, and Antonio Alfonseca have twenty-five fingers.
• There are twenty-five men on a Major League team's active roster.
• From September 1 until the season's end, Major League rosters expand to forty players. Interestingly, none of the aforementioned men grow corresponding fingers.
• The liver is the only human organ that can regenerate itself. The salamander can regenerate entire limbs.
• Cirrhosis of the liver is caused in part by the replacement of liver tissue with regenerative nodules. The disorder was a contributing factor in the deaths of Hall of Fame members Mickey Mantle, Hack Wilson, and Shoeless Joe Jackson.
• Mordecai Brown died of complications from diabetes. If left untreated, the disease can result in the amputation of limbs. Brown, however, lost his fingers in an accident with a piece of farm machinery.

Name
Team – No. No.
Position
Bats: Bats Throws: Throws
debut
April 1, 2000, for the Debut Team
Career statistics (through 2006)
Batting average	.200
Homeruns	10
Runs batted in	20
Former teams
Team (Year–Year) Team (Year-Year)