The Doubleday story is a myth
For much of the twentieth century Americans were told that baseball was invented in 1839 by Abner Doubleday in Cooperstown, New York. A committee set up in 1905 to decide where the game came from announced the story in 1907, largely on the word of one elderly man. Historians have since shown it is not true: Doubleday was a student at military academy at the time and never claimed to have invented anything.
Baseball grew out of older English bat-and-ball games such as rounders. A children's book printed in London in 1744 mentions base-ball, and Jane Austen has a character in Northanger Abbey who enjoys playing it. Our famous authors page covers Austen herself. The first openly professional team, the Cincinnati Red Stockings, was formed in 1869 and went a whole season without losing.
Why a curveball curves
A PITCHER can make the ball curve in the air by spinning it. As the spinning ball flies, it drags air round with it, creating higher pressure on one side and lower on the other, and the ball swerves towards the low-pressure side. The same effect bends a football free kick. A CURVEBALL dips sharply as it reaches the BATTER, a SLIDER breaks sideways, and a FASTBALL relies on sheer speed — top pitchers throw at more than 160 kilometres an hour.
The CATCHER crouching behind home plate signals which pitch to throw, using finger signs hidden from the other team. A batter who misses three good pitches is out on a STRIKE.
A song by people who had never seen a game
Take Me Out to the Ball Game, sung by crowds during the seventh-inning stretch at almost every game, was written in 1908 by two songwriters who had never been to a baseball game. One of them, Jack Norworth, is said to have been inspired by a sign on a train. The stretch itself, when fans stand up midway through the seventh INNING, is one of the sport's oldest traditions.
A HOMERUN over the OUTFIELD fence scores everybody on the BASES, and a GRANDSLAM — a home run with all three bases occupied — scores four runs. The bases stand exactly 90 feet apart, a distance that makes close plays at first base a matter of a fraction of a second. A BUNT is a gentle tap to move a runner on, and a runner can STEAL a base by running while the pitcher is throwing.
Number 42
In 1947 Jackie Robinson became the first Black player in modern Major League Baseball, playing for the Brooklyn DODGERS and ending decades of segregation. He faced abuse from crowds and even some teammates, and answered it with outstanding play. His number, 42, has been retired by every team in the league, and every year on 15 April, Jackie Robinson Day, every player wears 42.
The rest of the grid holds the DIAMOND, the name for the square infield, the SHORTSTOP, the INFIELD, the DUGOUT where players wait, the UMPIRE, the GLOVE and the catcher's MITT, the New York YANKEES, and the PENNANT, a flag won by the champions of each league.