• 3 months ago
Transcript
00:00Okay, I'll give you an Albert Pujols and a Dontrell Willis for your David Wright rookie
00:10card.
00:11Okay, I'll throw in this Johnny Damon, but only because I like you.
00:17Ah, fine, what cards do you want?
00:25Man, you must really love David Wright.
00:35Dear Tim and Moby, How do you play baseball and why is it so popular?
00:40From Elizabeth.
00:41Moby and I love baseball.
00:43It's our favorite sport.
00:45Baseball is a team sport that first became popular during the 19th century.
00:50Although it's thought of as America's national pastime, most historians agree that it evolved
00:54from an old British children's game called rounders.
00:57Today, baseball is played all over the world, from sandlots to stadiums full of thousands
01:02of screaming fans.
01:05Here's a quick look at how it works.
01:08Baseball is played by two teams on a field called a diamond.
01:13Each team has nine players and they take turns playing offense and defense.
01:18Most of the action takes place around the base called home plate.
01:22When a team is on offense, it sends a batter up to home plate.
01:27The team on defense stands in the field waiting to catch the balls hit by the batter.
01:32And it has a pitcher to throw the ball over the plate.
01:41If the batter swings and misses three times, he's out.
01:47Strike three, you're out!
01:53If the batter hits the ball, he has to run from home plate to first base.
01:58But a couple of things can happen before he gets there.
02:02Right, if he hits it in the air and one of the players on defense catches it before it hits the ground,
02:07the batter is out.
02:09You're out!
02:11If he hits it on the ground, one of the defensive players can scoop it up and throw it to first base.
02:15If the ball gets there before the batter does, he's out.
02:18You're out!
02:20You're out!
02:22But if he makes it to first base before the ball does, then he's safe.
02:25Safe!
02:28That's called a hit.
02:30Now the batter becomes a runner.
02:33And it's time for the next player on the team to come up to bat.
02:38Right, the offense wants to get a lot of hits so it can move its runners from first base to second base to third base,
02:45and finally back home.
02:48Every time a runner reaches home plate safely, his team scores a run.
02:53The quickest way to score is by hitting the ball way over the fence, and none of the fielders can reach it.
02:59That's called a home run.
03:01When a batter hits one, he scores a run, and any runners on base score two.
03:10On the other hand, when your team makes three outs, it's turn at bat is over, and you have to switch sides.
03:16The batters all grab their gloves and go play defense, and the team on defense gets ready to start batting.
03:23Each one of these turns is called an inning.
03:26Whichever team has more runs at the end of nine innings wins the game.
03:32Well, if they're tied, they play extra innings until someone finally wins.
03:40Yeah, there's no clock. A game could conceivably go on forever.
03:46Well, there's a lot more to baseball than this.
03:49I didn't talk about things like walks, or the names of all the different defensive positions,
03:53or the infield fly rule, or why the Mets are my favorite team.
03:58Oh, fine.
03:59Okay, so David Wright is off the table.
04:02What do you want for that Carlos Beltran?
04:06Man, you're worse than Billy Bean!