Hey Fangirls! It’s just about summer and Major League Baseball is in full swing (pun intended). With that in mind, it’s a good time to brush up on our baseball knowledge so you can all Show What You Know.
1. The Basics – There are 30 teams with 15 in each of the American and National leagues with the winner of each league competing against the other in the World Series. It’s a long season, with 162 regular season games, which is why each team has 25 players on their roster but only play nine at a time.
2. RBI – This stands for “runners batted in” and measures the total number of runs that scored from a batters’ at-bats. A batter is awarded an RBI when his at-bat results in someone scoring a run, whether he strikes out, gets hit by a pitch or hits a homerun. If a runner crosses home plate as a result, that’s an RBI and it is one of the most important stats for a baseball player.
3. Batting Average – Let’s talk batting average. Baseball is one of very few activities in life where you can succeed three out of 10 times and be an All-Star. Babe Ruth, one of the best, if not the best player of all-time, had a career batting average of 342. While this may seem crazy, it is not as crazy as hitting a little ball with a wooden bat while it is flying at you at almost 100 miles per hour! Buy me some peanuts and cracker jacks. I’d rather watch, thank you.
4. ERA – The Earned Run Average is just like a batting average but for measuring the success of a pitcher. The ERA is the number of runs that a pitcher allows, scored without an error, per 9 innings pitched. Just multiply the total number of earned runs by 9 and divided by the number of innings pitched. It’s pretty easy to follow but just in case it gets confusing you just need to know that the better the pitcher, the lower their ERA.
Ok baseball Fangirls, time to take your knowledge out to the ballgame!
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