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Baseball is America’s pastime. To play the game there are a few basic pieces of equipment that everyone must have on hand. For most, this equipment is common knowledge, but some may be less familiar with the terminology and rules.

Every game revolves around a baseball bat and a ball. The ball contains a cork center that is wrapped in string and then covered with a layer of leather that is then stitched up. The bat is made of metal or wood, usually maple or ash. Metal bats are not allowed in professional games, but many minor league and Little League teams allow them.

In the game of baseball, the pitcher throws a ball to the man standing at home plate. That person is called the batter, and his goal is to hit the ball. The bases or plates are set up in a diamond shape a certain distance from one another. As the ball is hit, the batter runs to each base in order from home to first, second, third, and back to home.

Everyone on the team needs a baseball mitt. This protects the players’ hands from the impact of the ball. Catchers have a special mitt with additional padding and a wider span. Some players choose to put on an additional glove underneath the glove for added protection.

Batters wear batting gloves. This helps them grip the bat more tightly and offers a little insulation against the shock of the bat hitting the ball.

A batting helmet is required as head protection for any batter. Pitches can travel upwards of 90 miles per hour, so headgear is necessary. Catchers wear a helmet as well; only their helmet also has a wire cage that pulls down over the face to protect from additional injuries.

All players wear a cup. This protects them from groin injury during a game. A jockstrap holds the genitals in place inside the cup.

Pitchers and players on the field wear a baseball cap. This helps shade their eyes from the sun and also ties in to their team colors and uniform designs.

Uniforms also tie in to the team’s color scheme. Teams have two uniforms, one for home games and one for away games. Belts keep the pants from falling down during the game. Usually, the team has a logo, such as their mascot, that appears somewhere on the uniform. Often the players were sliding shorts under their uniforms to protect the legs from injury when a player slides into a base.

Also important to any uniform are the spiked sneakers. These special additions to the sole of the sneakers grip the ground tightly. This can be a lifesaver when the ground is slick from prior rain showers.

There are other items that may be used in any game, but they are optional. As long as a player is dressed in uniform and the coaches have the proper equipment, there is nothing to stop a number of players from enjoying their sport.

Gregg Hall is an author living in Navarre Beach Florida. Find more about this as well as baseball equipment at http://www.baseballequipmentplus.com

Perhaps the most important aspect of baseball is to have a bat that suits your needs. A bat’s weight, length, and material can all have a positive or negative affect on a batter’s swing. Consider every option when choosing a baseball bat for yourself.

Bats come in all shapes and sizes. Wooden bats are often popular with major leaguers, but some feel you get a better crack using a metal baseball bat. There are restrictions, however, on which bats can be used.

Every league has rules on what material a bat can be made from and the circumference of the bat’s barrel. Do not become ejected from a game because you failed to pay attention to the rules. Ask the appropriate commissioner, umpire, or coach to give you the rules on weight and height ratios. Remember that corked bats are not allowed for anything other than practice in many leagues.

When shopping for a bat, read the packaging. It is becoming increasingly common for a bat to have print directly on it that states, “Approved for such and such a league.” This can help you select a bat that will meet your needs and any restrictions.

Baseball bats can be as low as $20 and as high as $500. A pricey bat is not necessarily an excellent bat, just as an inexpensive bat does not mean that bat is inferior quality. The key to making any bat work for you is by practicing regularly. Nonetheless, you should find a bat that is appropriate to your strengths and weaknesses.

Today’s bats are advanced. The thin walls, wood choices, and formation can create the perfect environment for a ball to go flying. These same bats are also far more susceptible to dents and fractures; so increased technology is not necessarily the greatest option. Babe Ruth managed to hit numerous home runs without using today’s streamlined bats.

Batting cages often have balls pitched harder and faster than in a normal baseball game. If you regularly practice in batting cages, consider a metal bat. They are able to withstand the test of time better than one of today’s wooden bats.

Speaking of today’s bats, some even have nitrogen or helium inside. A bat enhanced with these gasses allows more of a “trampoline effect”, meaning the ball literally bounces off the bat at impact. This causes the ball to travel farther.

Visit stores and sample a variety of bats to find which baseball bat feels best to you. There is no tried or true formula for choosing a length. For this reason, it is far more beneficial to sample a number of bats until you find a bat that feels like an extension of your arm. The bat should allow you to swing freely without feeling like the weight of the baseball bat is knocking you off balance.

Never choose a bat that will last for a few years, especially for children. Any bat should fit for that immediate season, not be something a child grows into.

By following a few simple steps, you can find a bat that feels natural. As an extension of yourself, you are guaranteed to improve your swing!

Gregg Hall is an author living in Navarre Beach Florida. Find more about this as well as baseball bats at http://www.baseballequipmentplus.com

In the last 5 years the growing popularity and use of illegal substances like steroids in major league baseball has created a public outcry and led to indictments, arrests and congressional hearings. Some have even put major league baseball on par with professional wrestling as it is now a drugged or juiced game and old, lasting records by the greats like Ruth and Hank Aaron can easily be broken by lesser athletes on steroids and have become meaningless. Just look at Barry Bonds for an example.

Barry Bonds became depressed in the late 90s as new athletes like McGwire and Jose Conseco were becoming more popular for belting homeruns. Bonds was a great athlete, but he was aging and just like his father was headed for retirement. Bonds and everyone else knew that Conseco and the others were taking steroids. It was inevitable that Bonds would start taking steroids as he was very jealous and had an insatiable appetite for being the leader, he could not stand being in second place to anyone and he saw the great results of McGwire and Conseco.

Barry Bonds started taking numerous types of steroids through his trainer Greg Anderson. His physique, career and baseball would never be the same. Bonds was better after the steroids than anytime in his career. The steroids had elevated his career and possibly made him the best player in baseball history as he has now hit 722 career home runs. Only a few of the greatest players in Baseball history have ever hit into this range. It is similar to what Tiger Woods has done in Golf and his chasing Jack Nicklaus with his 18 career major titles. The difference is that Tiger Woods is a real champion and does not use illegal enhancers or drugs like steroids or cheat in any way. Kids can look up to him as a real hero.

Tiger Woods worked and trained very hard, he is also human as he went through a lot dealing with the loss of his father. Tiger woods through his great game and ethics has elevated professional golf and its fan base to all time highs. Barry Bonds, on the other hand, has devastated major league baseball and its rich history. Records are not meant to be broken on a daily or monthly basis. Records are just that records of greatness, by actual heroes like Joe DiMaggio, Ruth, Shoeless Joe Jackson, Hank Aaron, Mickey Mantle and Ty Cobb. They never used steroids and were great players both on and off the field.

What every professional athlete needs to understand is that our kids see them as idols, heroes and mentors. Its not about the money, its about the game. Ninety nine percent of professional athletes never become a great like Rod Carew, Michael Jordan, or Warren Moon, but they are all imprinted in our children. Everyone remembers the negatives like McEnroe and his emotional outbursts, Rae Caruth and O.J. Simpson whom have abused the legal system and their fame to commit murder, steroids, gambling and the expulsion of baseball legend Pete Rose. The leaders of these professional sports must soon realize that these players have tainted and in some respects ruined the future of sports like major league baseball.

To see immediate evidence of this all one has to do is look at the dwindling number of visitors to the baseball hall of fame in Cooperstown, NY. It used to be almost every young boys fantasy to see the outfit worn by Babe Ruth, the Ball that was signed by Reggie Jackson and his Yankee teammates, the stories of greatness and great hurdles and obstacles that were overcome by some of the legends. Rare baseball cards by players with strict standards like Honus Wagner whom had his cards pulled as he did not want to be associated with cigarettes and tobacco. The meaning of baseballs rich history has greatly suffered and will continue until something drastic is done.

Athletes like Barry Bonds that cheat and use illegal performance enhancing drugs should be banned and immediately removed from baseball and other sports. They should receive punishment worse than Pete Rose and should be stripped of all records, titles, and history in the game. Let someone who worked hard, overcame adversity and great obstacles, and never cheated and had great ethics, standards and was a true hero be the one to determine their fate. Someone like Hank Aaron. Hank Aaron set records, great records, the hard way and they are being tarnished by the likes of Barry Bonds and others. Hank Aaron, like Herschel Walker, overcame a very poor upbringing, racism, lack of resources and through sheer determination became one of the greatest athletes ever.

It is time to stop the commercialism and get back to the basics of these sports. We have forgotten what the game really means. There is a reason why in Brooklyn they still remember the Brooklyn Dodgers. Lets not let the great game of baseball be ruined by people like Barry Bonds. They must be removed from the game, their history completely wiped out and start anew. This is the only way to retain or rescue the image of professional baseball.

David Maillie specializes in automotive safety products and information. He holds numerous patents and awards for his patented headlight cleaner and restorer. For more information, tips, safety and money saving products for your auto please visit http://www.mdwholesale.com

Banjo hitters are always on the look out for hot bats to get them out of the cellar. What they do not realize is that getting on base at a higher frequency outweighs the over the wall thrill of crushing the baseball.

At the amateur level the playing field was leveled by having bats certified. The figures and ratios for these different levels of certification were designed to protect defensive players. Once the batter puts the ball into play, the defender only has their glove, skill and ability to keep them out of harms way.

Yet even with these protections there are fatal results. Most notably was a promising college pitcher that for what ever the reason was not able to protect himself from the ball being struck. Sadly, a line drive to the forehead resulted in a fatal injury.

Ball Exit Speed Ratio (BESR) is required to be listed with all non-wood bats used in the NCAA which is the limit of the liveliness. Certification process is performed by the University of Massachusetts at Lowell Baseball Research Center. UMLBRC is the official certification center for non wood baseball bats used in NCAA and NHFS leagues. Manufacturers previously were allowed to certify their own bats but his was eliminated in 2006. BESR is a mathematical prediction based the physics by applying the law of conversion of angular momentum to the ball-bat interaction.

Which is completely a mouthful but if you want all the nitty gritty equations, you can find them at the Baseball Research Center web site which is hosted by the University of Massachusetts – Lowell. All the technical information about how the BESR gets its name and what procedures are taken to certify bats are in the White Paper there.

Every year the marketing experts will tell you that theirs is the best bat for the buck. It is their job to convey to the public why theirs is the best and why you should have no issues with spending upwards of $400 to improve your game.

Marketing folks tend to pass over the fact that all non-wood bats require proper break in and temperatures to perform to the levels established in the lab. Add to this that batting cages are great for swing development they do little if noting to facilitate bat break in. Batters must simply hit real leather covered baseballs to break in new baseball bats.

Most baseball bat owners do not need to worry about varying weather as it is the select few that travel outside their dominate weather region. The accepted rule of thumb is never use composites under 65 degrees. So, for those in the northern states, wood and metal a better as they can handle the temperature ranges. Also, what may be a killer bat for a player that uses it in Arizona can be a complete dud should they travel to western Washington as the coastal air is heavy and generally cooler. This combination reduces ball flight via friction and weight in the ball while in tandem reducing the sweet spot on the composite and metal bats.

Manufactures look for ways to improve performance while attaining the BESR ratings. Backroom machinist have developed ways to “juice” or “roll” metal and composite bats to gain several feet of ball travel. All in the name of gaining a mechanical advantage over the opposition.

The scary part of shade tree bat modifiers is they may be creating something that is so un-safe it verges on dangerous. Not being a metallurgists and changing the way a baseball bat is shaped or designed to respond to high velocity impacts can lead to serious injury. Everyone in the vicinity of the impact is now at risk. Batter, Catcher and Umpire are all relatively close to where a 9 ounce ball traveling upwards of 75 miles per hour collideswith a 28 ounce bat rotating at 70 miles per hour. That is a whole lot of energy being redirected in an instant.

Worse yet would be the change in ownership of the bat. If an individual wants to modify their bat and place themselves at risk is one thing, but to sell it off at a garage sale to an unsuspecting baseball player is ludicrous. No conscientious person would hand someone a live grenade minus the pin. Not knowing when, how or to what extent a bat will fail is not different.

Player bat selection needs to be made on the basis of feel, comfort and confidence. These three things must be present at the approach to the plate, waiting at the plate, through the entire swing until the bat is released from the hands as the player make progress to fist base.

Lighter is generally better and the player can develop greater rotational velocity. Changes in mass do affect the response of the ball. Do not sacrifice sure footedness and balance for weight. Players may have short term or inconsistent gains with heavier bats. Trading for higher batting averages will always outweigh the occasional home run.

So, what makes for a hot bat? Hot bats are those that each player individually selects which provides for the best possible batting average at their skill level. Be it wood, metal or composite, if the player can consistently make contact with the ball from various pitchers, you indeed have a hot bat.

Mr. Dowdy is an Official Distributor for Kelley Athletic which is available at http://NW.kelleyusa.com or http://www.hirschgroupllc.com for more news/tips/articles or subscribe to the blog http://hgllc.typepad.com

Henry Chadwick, called the father of baseball, its first writer and the inventor of the box score, claimed that American baseball was positively descended from the British game of rounders, which became “town ball” in this country, then baseball. He was an eyewitness to the evolution, having seen rounders played as a boy in England, and rounders, town ball and baseball in this country.

A. G. Spalding, founder of the famous sporting goods house, a fine pitcher himself, and publisher of the “Baseball Guide,” claimed that such a theory was nonsense and that baseball was purely an American invention. A committee was appointed to investigate the matter. The findings of the committee – that baseball had been invented in 1839 by Abner Doubleday, a distinguished Civil War General, in Cooperstown, New York – were based wholly upon evidence submitted in a letter written by a man who stated that he had observed the actual invention when he was a schoolboy in Cooperstown.

Many accepted the findings of the committee even though there seemed to be much more evidence to support Chadwick’s claim than that of Spalding. To this day, even though numerous baseball authorities have repeatedly poked holes in the Doubleday theory, there are many who still believe this old story. It should be noted that Abner Doubleday himself never made any claims whatever to having had any influence on baseball. He had died years before the findings were published.

By the early 1840s, the baseball games played in this country had been pretty well standardized into “Town Ball,” played East of New York, and “the New York Game,” played, naturally, in New York. They were alike in many respects but Town Ball was patterned more after the ancient rounders, while the New York Game seems to have been largely taken from cricket. In 1842, the New Yorkers drew up the first diagram of a baseball field and grown men began to take this boys’ game seriously and to see in it possibilities for a great sport.

In 1845, the Knickerbocker Baseball Club of New York was formed, the first such organization in history. It was an amateur group with duly elected officers. No professional organization was to appear for twenty-five more years. The Club immediately began drawing up a set of standard rules and making plans for a more satisfactory playing field. Draftsman and surveyor Alexander Cart-wright was given the task of preparing a diagram for a new type of field.

By the following year, Cartwright had prepared the diamond diagram which, except for minor changes, is the baseball field used to this day wherever baseball is played. The Knickerbockers also established uniform rules which set the pattern for present-day ball.

The First Game. – The Knickerbockers then issued challenges to take on all comers and the first baseball game ever played under organized rules took place on June 19, 1846, at Elysian Fields (near Hoboken), New Jersey. “The New York Nine” was the opposing team and they beat the Knicks 23-1 in four innings.

So depressed were the Knickerbockers that they played no more inter-city games until 1851, but limited their play to practice games. After five years of practice, they evidently believed they were ready for another go at the game and took on the “Washington Baseball Club of New York” on June 3, 1851 on the same Elysian Fields.

Both teams were tied at the end of the ninth, but the Knicks got two runs in the tenth to win the game 22-20.

From this small beginning, the great game of baseball has developed into the huge game it is today.

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