Baseball Games example essay topic

Baseball has been Baseball Baseball Baseball has been providing us with fun and excitement for more than a hundred and fifty years. The first game resembling baseball as we know it today was played in Hoboken, New Jersey, on June 19, 1846. The New York Nine beat the New York Knickerbockers that day, 23-1. The game was played according to rules drawn up by Alexander J. Cartwright. A surveyed and amateur athlete. It is a myth that Abner Doubleday 1 invented baseball.

It was Alexander Cartwright, not Abner Doubleday, who first laid out the present dimensions of the playing field and established the basic rules of the game. The first Professional baseball team was the Cincinnati Red Stockings, who toured the country in 1869 and didn't lose a game all year. Baseball began to attract so many fans that in 1876 the National league was organized-the same National league that still exists today. Although the game was played in 1876 it was recognizable as baseball-nobody would confuse it with football or basketball-it was quite a bit different from baseball as we know it now. For example, pitchers had to throw underhand, the way they still do in softball; the batter could request the pitcher to throw a "high' or "low' pitch; it took nine balls, rather than four, for a batter to get a base on balls; and the pitching distance was oln y 45 feet to home plate. The rules were gradually changed over the following 20 years, until by about 1900 the game was more or less the same as it is today.

In 1884, the pitchers were permitted to throw overhand; in 1887, the batter was no longer allowed to request a "high " or "low' pitch; by 1889, it took only four balls to get a batter to a base on balls; the pitching distance was lengthened to sixty- feet, six inches. And since that day in 1846 There have been many greats to make up the game baseball such as Ty Cobb who was born in a small town in Georgia in 1886. He threw right-handed but batted left-handed. He held his hands a few inches apart on the bat and learned to bunt or slap line-drive hits precisely where he wanted them. He made place hitting an art. In the summer of 1905, Cobb joined a major league baseball them, the Detroit Tigers.

On August 9, Ty Cobb registered his first base hit as a member of the Tigers. In the many years to follow he added over four thousand more hits. Along with them would come a national rep- u tation. Another player who some have said "changed the game', is John Roosevelt ("Jackie') Robinson 2. On April 15, 1947 at two o'clock that tuesday afternoon when nine Brooklyn Dodgers sprang out thier dugout to take the feild to start the 1947 baseball season.

It was a memorable event in baseball history, indeed in American history. Undoubtedly Robinson was a great ballplayer. He was National league's Rookie of the year in 1947 and its Most valuable player (MVP) in 1949. He won the election in 1962 to the Baseball Hall of Fame, the first African- American ever chosen for that honor. And perhaps the greatest ballplayer of all time was Goerge Herman (Babe Ruth). During the 1920, Ruth's first season as a New York Yankee, he hit.

376, not enough to win the American league batting championship but a figure far beyond what today is registered by major leagues leaders. He also hit safely in 26 consecutive games, clubbed 9 triples and 36 doubles, and batted in 137 runs. Despite his weight of over 215, he stole 14 bases. Most remarkably, however, Ruth slugged 54 home runs for the season. Closest to him in the American League was Goerge Sister, with 19 homers, while the National League leader recorded a total of only 15. Almost every team in both leagues registered a total number far below the 54 of Babe Ruth alone.

There have been many more talented and great ball- players in the game such as (Ted Williams, Leo Durocher, Hank Aaron, Mickey Mantle, Roger Maris, Willie Mays, Joe DiMaggio, Bob Feller. Ted Williams Brought with him a superb batting eye and a striving for absolute perfection that eventually produced a. 344 lifetime batting average. Bob feller possessed a fastball that rivaled Walter Johnson's.

Joe DiMaggio had style, courage and leadership qualities that many say have never been equaled. These and other ballplayers have all done thier part to shape the game of baseball. Not only has there been great ballplayers but there has also been many memorable moments. Such as in the 1920 Pennant race, Carl Mays threw a spit-ball and KILLED clevlands favorite short-stop, Ray Chatman.

For any baseball fan, October is the most exiting time of the year because that's when the World Series takes place. During the Series, every play is magnified. There are no second chances. The pressure is on.

Sixty MILLION people or more are watching on TV. Anything can happen. Maybe Carlton Fisk will stroke an extra-inning, game-winning homer that will be remember- erd for decades. Or maybe a pebble n aer third base will cause a bad hop over the head of Fred Lindstrom and cost his team the championship.

Since the modern World Series began in 1903, some of the showdowns have been boring, but many have been exiting, hard-fought contests. Many, which have been truly spectacular, with stomach-churning intensity and riveting, gripping action. Melodrama and strategy. Heros and goals. Seesaw battles to the end. And today, we now have a new generation of ball- players.

Such as in 1998 at the end of the Mark McGwire 3 who had sent 76 baseballs flying into outer space, Sammy Sosa 70, and ken Griffey Jr., with 62 which in the 1920 and 30'was un-thought of un-imaginable, to even hit 15 home runs now players can hit 15 home runs by May 15th. Another astonishing differance is players today are earning countless millions of dollars, unlike days of yesteryear when players only made if they were lucky 125,000 dollars. Also the equipment has changed some, for in stents the glove players didn't start wearing gloves on the feild until the 1880's. At first, they wore only a thin peice of leather over the palm of their hand, with five holes cut out for the fingers to go through. By the 1890's, however, the gloves began to look like today's baseball gloves. Nowadays, the glove is much larger than it used to be, and the ball is not caught in the palm of the hand but be trapped in the "pocket', between the thumb and fore- finger.

Since the mid 1950's, the glove has become more of a net with which to snare the ball rather than just a protective covering for hand. Baseball games or also fun to watch because you are rooting for your team to win. A home run by yor team is great, and one by the other team is terrible. but, in addition, a lot of other things are happening that are also fun to know about. Once you become familiar with them you will enjoy the game even more (provided, of course that your team wins). So you may ask why has baseball remained so popular for all these years? Since Alexander Cartwright first laid out the dimensions of the playing field and drew up the rules of the game, it has furnished enjoyment and excite- ment for countless millions of people, young and old alike.

Foot-notes: 1- Abner Doubleday was a young West Point cadet. He was supposed to in the summer of 1839, in the village of cooper- shown, New York. Start the game of baseball. Because of the numerous types of baseball, or rather games similar to it, some be lived Doubleday started the game of baseball.

2- Jackie Robinson was the first African-American to play the game. 3- For pitchers in this day and age, the most threatening figure to stride toward the batter's box with a piece of lumber in his massive fists is six-foot-five, 250 pound, red- head Mark McGwire. Right-handed at the plate and in the field, the amiable freckle-faced first baseman is the leading power-hitter of his generation. 4- Sammy Sosa signed his first professional baseball contract ay age of sixteen. Right-handed at bat and in the out feild, he is treme d- ously popular in Chicago and in all Latin-America. Six-feet and two hundred pounds, he was the smallest of the three challenger for the home-run record.

A regular with the Cubs starting in 1993, Sosa is no newcomer to home runs he averaged thirty-six a season over the three-year span from 1995-1997. Ritter, Lawrence S. Story of baseball. New York: Beech Tree Paperback Book, 1999 Jacobs, William Jay. They Shaped The Game.

New York: Macmillan Publishing Company, 1994 Kahn, Roger. Memories of Summer. New York: Hook Slide, Inc., 1997 Internet: AOL, 2000 Gutman, Dan. World Series Classics. New York: Penguin Books USA Inc., 1994 Edited by Eliot Cohen. My Greatest Day in Baseball.

New York: Baseball Ink Book., 1991 Sowell, Mike. The Pitch That Killed. New York: Macmillan Publishing Company., 1989.