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| Baseball infield |
- On one day every season even the president of the United States takes part in a game.
- Baseball is a bat-and-ball sport played between two teams of nine players each.
- Baseballs and bats are very carefully made. The balls are made of cork, rubber, yarn, and horsehide. They weigh about 5 ounces and are about 9 inches around. Baseball bats are usually made of ash wood. They cannot be longer than 42 inches, or thicker than 2-3/4 inches.
- In April of 1961 Maris hit only one home run, but had 50 before September 1st. The only player to reach that mark before September until Sosa and McGwire did it in '98. Maris had no stolen bases that year.
- In the United States there are many baseball leagues. The two major leagues are the National League and the American League. At the end of the season the winners in these two leagues play the World Series.
- The New York Yankees have won 26 World Series titles, which is more than any other team.
- The game is sometimes referred to as hardball, in contrast to the derivative game of softball.
- Ted Williams won the AL batting titles when he was 39 and again at 40. The last At Bat of Ted's career was a homerun on the last day of the 1960 season.
- The first World Series was played between Pittsburgh and Boston in 1903 and was a nine-game series. Boston won the series 5-3.
- The first "Babe" in baseball was Babe Adams who pitched from 1906 to 1926.
Baseball stars from the National League and the American League played the first All-Star Game in 1933In North America, professional Major League Baseball (MLB) teams are divided into the National League (NL) and American League (AL). Each league has three divisions: East, West, and Central. - Former Yankees right fielder Mickey Mantle holds the record for most career home runs (18) and RBI (40) in World Series history.
- Mickey Lolich, who pitched for 16 years, hit his only home run in his first World Series game (1968).
- Pete Rose, who played for the Cincinnati Reds and then was banned from baseball for life for betting on games while managing the team, holds the all-time record for hits (4,256) and games played (3,562).
- Joe DiMaggio is the only person to play on four World Championship teams in his first four years in the big leagues, the 1936-39 Yankees.
- Baltimore Orioles shortstop Cal Ripken, Jr. didn't miss a game in 16 years. He played in 2,632 consecutive games from April 30, 1982 to Sept. 19, 1998.
- Reggie Jackson had four consecutive home runs spanning Games Five and Six of the 1977 World Series.
- Fourteen players have hit four home runs in one game: Bobby Lowe, Ed Delahanty, Lou Gehrig, Chuck
- Klein, Pat Seerey, Gil Hodges, Joe Adcock, Rocky Colavito, Willie Mays, Mike Schmidt, Bob Horner, Mark Whiten, Mike Cameron and Shawn Green.
- Hank Bauer of the Yankees had hits in 17 consecutive World Series games spanning 1956 to 1958.
- In 2001, San Francisco's Barry Bonds broke the all-time single-season home run record when he hit 73. He broke the mark of 70, set by St. Louis Cardinals first baseman Mark McGwire in 1998.
- Cy Young Award facts: First reliever to win was Mike Marshall in 1974. The youngest player to win was Dwight Gooden in 1984.
- Pitcher Nolan Ryan played 27 seasons in major league baseball and struck out more batters in his career than any other pitcher.
- Rookie of the Year award fact: Johnny Bench was the first catcher to get the award, 1968.
- San Francisco's Barry Bonds has won the National League MVP Award seven times. That's four more times than Stan Musial, Roy Campanella, and Mike Schmidt, his closest NL co-winners. On the
- American League MVP list are Jimmie Foxx, Joe DiMaggio, Yogi Berra, and Mickey Mantle with three awards each.
OTHER FACTS ABOUT BASEBALL
- By the late 19th century, baseball was widely recognized as the national sport of the United States.
- Philadelphia A's (now the Oakland Athletics) manager Connie Mack has 3,755 career victories, more than any other manager in history.
- Softball is a kind of baseball. It is played with a ball that is bigger and softer than a standard baseball. The bases are closer to-gether. But the rules are very much like regular baseball rules
- The National Baseball Hall of Fame Museum is located in Cooperstown, N.Y. It was created in 1935 to celebrate baseball's 100th anniversary.
- Almost every American understands baseball because almost everyone has played the game himself. Most schools have baseball teams, and baseball games are common on playgrounds or empty lots on summer afternoons.
- Probably no one person should be called the inventor of baseball. It simply grew out of earlier games.
