Baseball

If it weren’t for baseball, many kids wouldn’t know what a millionaire looked like.

Phyllis DiUer

Baseball is a team sport in which a fist-sized ball is thrown and hit with a bat. Scoring involves running and touching markers on the ground called bases. The ball itself is called a baseball. Baseball is sometimes called hardball to differenti­ate it from the closely related sport of softball and other similar games.

Baseball is popular in the Americas and East Asia. In Ja­pan, the Dominican Republic, Cuba, Panama, South Korea, Taiwan and some other countries, it is the most popular sport by any measurement. In the United States, baseball has often been called the national pastime, and the total attendance for Major League games is more than that of all other Amer­ican professional team sports combined. Among American television viewers, however, it has been surpassed in popular­ity by American football and car racing. Although the three most popular team sports in North America are ball games: baseball, basketball and American football. Baseball's popu­larity was once so great that the word «ballgame» in the Unit­ed States specifically refers to a game of baseball.

Baseball is played between two teams of nine players each on a baseball field, usually under the authority of one or more officials, called umpires. There are usually four um­pires in major league games; up to six may officiate depend­ing on the league and the importance of the game. There are four bases numbered counter-clockwise, first, second and third bases are cushions shaped as 15-inch (38 cm) squares which are raised above the ground; together with home plate, the fourth base, they form a square with sides of 90 feet (27.4 meters) called the diamond. Home base is a pentagonal slab known as home plate. The field is divided into two main sec­tions: the infield contains the four bases, and beyond two adjacent sides of the diamond there is an outfield. The other two sides of the diamond form the start of the foul lines, which extend straight, and form the boundary in the outfield as well.

The game is played in nine innings in which each team gets one turn to bat and try to score runs while the other pitches and defends in the field. In baseball, the defense always has the ball — a fact that differentiates it from most other team sports. The teams switch every time the defending team gets three players of the batting team out. The winner is the team with the most runs after nine innings. In the case of a tie, additional innings are played until one team comes out ahead. At the start of the game, all nine players of the home team play the field, while players on the visiting team come to bat one at a time.

The basic contest is always between the pitcher for the fielding team, and a batter. The pitcher throws—pitches—the ball towards home plate, where the catcher for the fielding team waits to receive it. The batter stands in one of the bat­ter’s boxes and tries to hit the ball with a bat. The catcher’s job is to catch any ball that the batter misses or does not swing at, and, most importantly, to «call» the game by a series of hand signals to the pitcher what pitch to throw and where. If the pitcher disagrees with the call, he will «shake off» the catcher by shaking his head no; he accepts the sign by nodding. The catcher’s role becomes more crucial depending on how the game is going, and how the pitcher responds to a given situation. Each pitch begins a new play, which might consist of nothing more than the pitch itself.

Each team is allowed to substitute for any player at any time, but no player, once removed from the game, may re­turn.

EXERCISE 1. Answer the following questions.

1. What is baseball?

2. What are the other baseball names?

3. What is sometimes called the national pastime?

4. What is pitcher? What is the main purpose of a pitcher?

5. What is batter? What is the main purpose of a batter?

6. How many innings are there in the game?

7. Does defensive or offensive team have the ball in the base­ball game?

8. How many bases are there on the game field?

9. How many sections are there on the field?

10. What is the most interesting sport event for American television viewers?

EXERCISE 2.Translate from Ukrainian into English.

1.Основне змагання завжди відбувається між тим ,хто подає , його команда перебуває в полі, і тим, який б’є. 2. Кожній команді дозволяють провести заміну будь-якого гравця в будь-який час, але жоден гравець, вилучений з поля під час гри, не може повернутися. 3. Бейсбол популярний в обох Америках та Східної Азії, в Японії, Домініканській Республіці, Кубі, Панамі, Південній Кореї, Тайвані. 4. Трьома найпопулярнішими спортивними командними змаганнями в Північній Америці є ігри з м'ячем: бейсбол, баскетбол та американський футбол. 5. На початку гри всі дев'ять гравців приймаючої команди грають у полі, в той час як гравці команди гостей по черзі виходять на ударну позицію. 6. Бейсбол - це командна гра, в якій м'яч, розміром як кулак ,кидають і відбивають битою. 7. Є чотири бази, розташовані проти годинникової стрілки - перша, друга і третя база мають форму подушки розміром в 15-дюймів (38 см), вони підняті над основою майданчика; разом з четвертої базою вони формують квадрат зі стороною 90 футів (27.4 метрів), котрий називається алмазом. 8. Серед американських телеглядачів, однак, популярність бейсболу була нижчою, ніж американського футболу і автомобільних гонок. 9. У Сполучених Штатах бейсбол часто називають національним дозвіллям, а повна відвідуваність ігор у Вищій лізі перевершує відвідуваність спортивних змагань всіх інших американських професійних ліг разом узятих.