14 Facts About Baseball

1.

Baseball is a bat-and-ball sport played between two teams of nine players each, taking turns batting and fielding.

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2.

Baseball has no game clock, although most games end in the ninth inning.

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3.

Baseball evolved from older bat-and-ball games already being played in England by the mid-18th century.

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4.

The World Baseball Classic, organized by the World Baseball Softball Confederation, is the major international competition of the sport and attracts the top national teams from around the world.

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5.

Baseball game is played between two teams, each usually composed of nine players, that take turns playing offense and defense (pitching and fielding).

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6.

The Confederation Europeene de Baseball, founded in 1953, organizes a number of competitions between clubs from different countries.

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7.

MLB initiated the World Baseball Classic, scheduled to precede its season, partly as a replacement, high-profile international tournament.

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8.

Baseball has certain attributes that set it apart from the other popular team sports in the countries where it has a following.

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9.

In 2004, Major League Baseball declared that its goal was an average game of 2:45.

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10.

In 2008, Nippon Professional Baseball took steps aimed at shortening games by 12 minutes from the preceding decade's average of 3:18.

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11.

Baseball has an important place in other national cultures as well: Scholar Peter Bjarkman describes "how deeply the sport is ingrained in the history and culture of a nation such as Cuba, [and] how thoroughly it was radically reshaped and nativized in Japan.

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12.

Baseball has had a broad impact on popular culture, both in the United States and elsewhere.

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13.

Baseball has provided thematic material for hits on both stage—the Adler–Ross musical Damn Yankees—and record—George J Gaskin's "Slide, Kelly, Slide", Simon and Garfunkel's "Mrs Robinson", and John Fogerty's "Centerfield".

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14.

Baseball cards were introduced in the late 19th century as trade cards.

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