Sport facts

With his big stomach and spindly legs, Babe Ruth didn’t much look like a great baseball player — but, man, could he hit a ball! As a boy, Ruth roamed the streets of Baltimore, chewed tobacco by age seven and drank whiskey by age 10. Worried about him, his parents sent Ruth to St. Mary’s [...]

They were the best National League team of the 1970s, and in fact one of the best teams baseball has ever seen. Their .667 winning percentage (108-54) in 1975 ties that year’s team for seventh-best all-time. Wherever you looked around the Cincinnati Reds diamond you saw All-Stars and future Hall of Famers. At second base, [...]

Baseball, more than any other sport, is overrun by rituals and tradition and lore. There’s the throwing out of the first ball, of course. Tossing the ball around the horn after a strikeout. The seventh-inning stretch. The home run trot. Every kid dreaming about catching at least one foul ball. “Pepper” — where a coach [...]

For a baseball player, there’s nothing more magical than to emerge as the hero of the World Series. With hundreds of millions of fans looking on, even the most mediocre of ballplayers can gain immortality (not to mention thousands, or millions, of dollars worth of endorsements) with a timely hit or series of hits, a [...]

With the bases empty of New York Mets and two outs in the bottom of the 10th inning of Game 6 of the 1986 World Series, New York’s Shea Stadium scoreboard flashed the message, “Congratulations, Red Sox.” The Boston Red Sox led the Series three games to two, and they led the game 5-3. Finally, [...]

Because of the popularity of baseball, there has been a rapid growth of leagues for young players. The best known of these leagues is the Little League, which is an international program for children from ages 5 to 18. The first Little League was started in 1939, in Williamsport, PA by Carl E. Stotz. The [...]

* ALTERED BAT – One on which an illegal physical change has been done, such as cork in a bat, or a metal bat handle replaced with a wooden one. * APPEAL PLAY – One on which an umpire cannot make a decision until requested by a coach or player, such as when a player [...]