1.
Strikeout
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In baseball or softball, a strikeout occurs when a batter accumulates three strikes during a time at bat. It usually means the batter is out, a strikeout is a statistic recorded for both pitchers and batters, and is denoted by K. Although a strikeout suggests that the pitcher dominated the batter, the style that generates home runs also leaves batters susceptible to striking out. Some of the greatest home run hitters of all time — such as Alex Rodriguez, Gorman Thomas, Reggie Jackson, and Sammy Sosa — were notorious for striking out. A pitched ball is ruled a ball by the if the batter did not swing at it and, in that umpires judgment. Any pitch at which the batter swings or, that in that umpires judgment passes through the zone, is ruled a strike. Each ball and strike affects the count, which is incremented for each pitched ball with the exception of a ball on any count with two strikes. That is, a strike may only occur by the batter swinging and missing at a pitched ball. A pitched ball that is struck by the batter with the bat on any count, a batter may also strike out by bunting, even if the ball is hit into foul territory. In Japan, this is called furinige, or swing and escape, in Major League Baseball, it is known as an uncaught third strike. When this happens, a strikeout is recorded for both the pitcher and the batter, but no out is recorded, because of this, a pitcher may occasionally be able to record more than three strikeouts in one half-inning. In baseball scorekeeping, a strikeout is recorded as a K. A strikeout looking is often scored with a backward K, and sometimes as a K-L, CK, despite the scorekeeping custom of using K for strikeout, SO is the official abbreviation used by Major League Baseball. K is still used by fans and enthusiasts for purposes other than official record-keeping. The K may be placed backward in cases where the batter strikes out looking, the use of K for a strikeout was invented by Henry Chadwick, a newspaper journalist who is widely credited as the originator of the box score and the baseball scorecard. As is true in much of baseball, both the box score and scorecard remain largely unchanged to this day, Chadwick decided to use K, the last letter in struck, since the letter S was used for sacrifice. Chadwick was responsible for several other scorekeeping conventions, including the use of numbers to designate player positions and those unaware of Chadwicks contributions have speculated that K was derived from the last name of 19th century pitcher Matt Kilroy. If not for the evidence supporting Chadwicks earlier use of K, Kilroy raised the prominence of the strikeout, setting an all-time single-season record of 513 strikeouts in 1886, only two years after overhand pitching was permitted
2.
Minnesota Twins
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The Minnesota Twins are an American professional baseball team based in Minneapolis, Minnesota. The Twins compete in Major League Baseball as a club of the American League Central division. The team is named after the Twin Cities area comprising Minneapolis and they played in Metropolitan Stadium from 1961 to 1981 and the Hubert H. Humphrey Metrodome from 1982 to 2009. They played their game at the newly completed Target Field on April 12,2010. The team was founded in Washington, D. C. in 1901 as one of the eight teams of the American League. Manager Clark Griffith joined the team in 1912 and became the owner in 1920. The franchise remained under Griffith family ownership until 1984, in 1960, Major League Baseball granted the city of Minneapolis an expansion team. Washington owner Calvin Griffith, Clarks nephew and adopted son, requested that he be allowed to move his team to Minneapolis and instead give Washington the expansion team. Upon league approval, the moved to Minnesota after the 1960 season, setting up shop in Metropolitan Stadium. Success came quickly to the team in Minnesota, through the 2016 season, the franchise has won three World Series championships, and has fielded 18 American League batting champions. The Washington Senators spent the first decade of their existence finishing near the bottom of the American League standings and their fortunes began to improve with the arrival of 19-year-old pitcher, Walter Johnson, in 1907. Johnson blossomed in 1911 with 25 victories, although the Senators still finished the season in seventh place, in 1912, the Senators improved dramatically, as their pitching staff led the league in team earned run average and in strikeouts. Johnson won 33 games while teammate Bob Groom added another 24 wins to help the Senators finish the season in second place, the Senators continued to perform respectably in 1913 with Johnson posting a career-high 35 victories, as the team once again finished in second place. The Senators then fell into another period of decline for the next decade, the Senators faced John McGraws heavily favored New York Giants in the 1924 World Series. The two teams traded wins back and forth until the reached the seventh and deciding game. Two runners scored on the play, tying the score at three, an aging Walter Johnson then came in to pitch the ninth inning, and held the Giants scoreless into extra innings. In the bottom of the inning with Ruel at bat, he hit a high. The Giants catcher, Hank Gowdy, dropped his protective mask to field the ball but, failing to toss the mask aside, stumbled over it and dropped the ball, thus giving Ruel another chance to bat
3.
Baseball
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Baseball is a bat-and-ball game played between two teams of nine players each, who take turns batting and fielding. A run is scored when a player advances around the bases, Players on the batting team take turns hitting against the pitcher of the fielding team, which tries to prevent runs by getting hitters out in any of several ways. A player on the team who reaches a base safely can later attempt to advance to subsequent bases during teammates turns batting. The teams switch between batting and fielding whenever the team records three outs. One turn batting for both teams, beginning with the team, constitutes an inning. A game is composed of nine innings, and the team with the number of runs at the end of the game wins. Baseball has no clock, although almost all games end in the ninth inning. Baseball evolved from older bat-and-ball games already being played in England by the mid-18th century and this game was brought by immigrants to North America, where the modern version developed. By the late 19th century, baseball was widely recognized as the sport of the United States. Baseball is now popular in North America and parts of Central and South America, the Caribbean, in the United States and Canada, professional Major League Baseball teams are divided into the National League and American League, each with three divisions, East, West, and Central. The major league champion is determined by playoffs that culminate in the World Series, the top level of play is similarly split in Japan between the Central and Pacific Leagues and in Cuba between the West League and East League. The evolution of baseball from older bat-and-ball games is difficult to trace with precision, a French manuscript from 1344 contains an illustration of clerics playing a game, possibly la soule, with similarities to baseball. Other old French games such as thèque, la balle au bâton, consensus once held that todays baseball is a North American development from the older game rounders, popular in Great Britain and Ireland. Baseball Before We Knew It, A Search for the Roots of the Game, by David Block, suggests that the game originated in England, recently uncovered historical evidence supports this position. Block argues that rounders and early baseball were actually regional variants of other. It has long believed that cricket also descended from such games. The earliest known reference to baseball is in a 1744 British publication, A Little Pretty Pocket-Book, David Block discovered that the first recorded game of Bass-Ball took place in 1749 in Surrey, and featured the Prince of Wales as a player. William Bray, an English lawyer, recorded a game of baseball on Easter Monday 1755 in Guildford and this early form of the game was apparently brought to Canada by English immigrants
4.
2013 World Baseball Classic
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The 2013 World Baseball Classic was an international professional baseball competition, held from March 2 to March 19,2013. This was the iteration of the WBC, following the two previous tournaments, held in 2006 and 2009. Unlike the two previous WBCs, which consisted of the sixteen countries, only the twelve countries that won at least one game in the 2009 WBC were guaranteed a berth in the main tournament. The automatic qualifiers were Australia, China, Cuba, Dominican Republic, Italy, Japan, Mexico, the Netherlands, Puerto Rico, South Korea, the United States, and Venezuela. Four qualification brackets were held in late 2012 and respectively won by Canada, Taiwan, Spain, and Brazil, as in the 2006 tournament, the first round had a round-robin format, which led to South Korea being eliminated on a run difference tiebreaker. Venezuela also failed to advance out of a tough group, the fourth-place teams in each group – Brazil, Australia, Spain, and Mexico – will have to participate in the qualifying round in order to return for the 2017 tournament. The Netherlands improved on its surprising 2009 run by advancing to the semifinal game, however, the two-time defending champions Japan were eliminated in the semi-finals game against stunning Puerto Rico. In the final game, the Dominican Republic defeated Puerto Rico to become the first WBC champion from the Western Hemisphere, robinson Canó was named the Most Valuable Player of the Classic. JPBPA demanded a share of advertising and merchandise sponsorship revenue for the tournament. In July 2012 the JPBPA voted unanimously to boycott the 2013 World Baseball Classic, the move was interpreted by some news outlets as a non-final decision, aimed at raising the pressure on MLB. In September 2012, Japanese players agreed to part after reaching a compromise with tournament organizers on sharing sponsorship. The automatic qualifiers were Australia, China, Cuba, Dominican Republic, Italy, Japan, Mexico, the Netherlands, Puerto Rico, South Korea, the United States, and Venezuela. The other four teams from the 2009 tournament contested a round in late 2012. The qualifying round was organized as four independent modified double-elimination tournaments, the modification was that the final game was winner-take-all, even if won by the team emerging from the losers bracket. Although this modified format was used in some rounds of the 2009 World Baseball Classic, in that tournament the final game was only for seeding. As practiced in the 2013 qualifiers, the team emerging from the winners bracket might be eliminated from the tournament despite losing one game. The composition of the pools was determined based on geographical location, competitive balance. In Qualifier 1, South Africa took on France, Israel, in Qualifier 2, Canada took on the Czech Republic, Germany, and Great Britain, with the games taking place in Regensburg, Germany
5.
2017 World Baseball Classic
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The 2017 World Baseball Classic was an international professional baseball competition, composed of 16 competing nations, held from March 6 to March 22,2017. It was the iteration of the WBC. The first-round hosts were Seoul, Tokyo, Miami and Zapopan, the second-round hosts were Tokyo and San Diego, and the championship round was played in Los Angeles. Two of the four qualifiers, Colombia and Israel, each made their first appearance in the World Baseball Classic, the Netherlands, Japan, Puerto Rico, and the United States advanced to the championship round. Defending champion Dominican Republic was eliminated in the second round, the United States defeated Puerto Rico to win the championship game, 8–0. Marcus Stroman was named tournament MVP and he made three starts for Team USA, and posted a 2.35 ERA in 15 1⁄3 total innings, including six shutout innings in the championship game. The top three teams from pool of the first round of the 2013 World Baseball Classic automatically qualified. The first and second rounds of the tournament were played in round-robin format, with each playing each other team in their pool once. However, in an effort to reduce the likelihood that a team would be eliminated on statistical tiebreakers, if there is a two-way tie for first, since both teams advance, there would be no extra game. The team that won the game between the teams would be declared the pool winner, and the other team the pool runner-up. If there is a tie for first, head-to-head results would not help to break the tie. In this case, statistics would determine the team. If there is a tie for second, statistics would determine the top two teams who would then play to determine the pool runner-up. The team ranked worst on the calculation would be eliminated, IPD − Innings the team pitched. RA/IPD − The index of RA/IPD, Pool A of the First Round of the 2017 World Baseball Classic was held at Gocheok Sky Dome, Seoul, South Korea from March 6 to 10,2017, between Team Israel, the Netherlands, South Korea, and Taiwan. Pool A was a round-robin tournament, prior to the start of the tournament, ESPN considered Team Israel, ranked 41st in the world, to be the biggest underdog in the tournament, referring to them as the Jamaican bobsled team of the WBC. Team Israel and Team Netherlands qualified for the round, in Japan. Israel became the first baseball team to go undefeated in the first round of the WBC’s main draw after entering the draw by winning in a qualifying round
