Okay, this may be a bit dull, but you have to have a handy cheat sheet of terms to know and love or the game will go way over your head. This is the beginner class, there will be more advanced terms later on once these are mastered!

Terms to know:

At Bat: The offensive team’s turn to try to score.

Ball: When the pitch goes outside of the strikezone

Bases Empty: No runners on the bases.

Bases Loaded: Runners on every base and in scoring position! Very exciting!

Bat: Um, the thing used to hit the ball.

Batter’s Box: Place the batter must stand while the pitcher throws a really fast ball at them. Defined by chalk lines around the home plate marker.

Batting Order: The order that the teams will take turns hitting. The “top of the order” is usually the teams key players and hitters.

Count: Not 1, 2, 3, 4. It means the number of balls and strikes on the hitter at bat. “The count is 3 and 2″ means the pitcher has thrown 3 balls and two strikes and the batter still has one more pitch left.

On Deck: The next player about to bat. Usually hanging out on the side swinging multiple bats around while he waits his turn. This, apparently, is to warm up his arm.

Retiring the Side:

Safe: Usually accompanied by wild hand signals by the umpire.

Shoplifting: Oh wait, I mean stealing. This is actually a good thing in baseball. Stealing is when a player runs ahead to the next base before it’s time to run.

Strikezone: The specific area over home plate that the pitcher is aiming for. Technically, its the space over the plate that falls between the batter’s armpit and his knees when he is positioned to swing. The umpire behind the plate is the one that determines if the pitch was thrown in the strikezone and if it was, then it is called a:

Strike:

-A pitch thrown in the strikezone that the batter did not swing at.
-When a player swings and misses the ball. Really funny to watch because they swing with so much power and when it doesn’t connect with anything, they stumble a bit.

-A foul ball that is not caught.

Walk: When the pitcher throws 4 pitches outside of the strikezone (Balls) the batter is automatically allowed to go to First Base. This is also called a Base On Balls, meaning the batter took the Base because of Balls, not hits.

About the author: Jennifer Taglione is the owner of this fabulous website Stiletto Sports. Despite writing well over 500 posts, she still maintains that she is not a sports writer! She is however a huge fan of Kurt Warner, Larry Fitzgerald, Mark Sanchez, the Celtics, and totally kicks butt on March Madness brackets! Connect with her by following her on Twitter @StilettoSportsJ and subscribing to her weekly newsletter. For more info check out the About the Editor page!

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