Baseball

(The nine positions of a team’s defense)

Highest governing body: World Baseball Softball Confederation
First played: Mid-18th century or prior, England or Flanders (early form). June 4, 1838, Beachville, Ontario (first recorded game with codified rules)
Team members: 9
Olympic: Demonstrated in 1912, 1936, 1952, 1956, 1964, 1984, and 1988 Summer Olympics. In Summer Olympic program, 1992–2008

Baseball is a team sport derived from the same roots as cricket. It is on a plot of grass and sand. It is played with bats to hit a pitched ball, and gloves to catch the ball. The origins of baseball lend themselves to controversy, but it is indisputable that the first modern rules (the “Knickerbocker Rules”) have been codified in the United States in 1845. The European roots of the game, long neglected by the American authorities to make baseball a typical American sport, are long known by US sports historians. There is a recent highlighting of a description of a match played in 1755 in Surrey (England).

However, it is well in the United States that this sport is organized and structured. The first championships will emerge from 1857-1858, professionalism is authorized in 1869 and the National League was founded in 1876. Thirty franchises, one of them based in Canada, Toronto, evolve at the highest level in the Major League Baseball (MLB). Since 1903, the World Series oppose in October the winners of the two leagues forming the MLB.

Managed globally by the International Baseball Federation (IBAF), created in 1938, this summer sport practiced generally from spring to autumn is very popular in North America, some countries in Central America (Nicaragua and Panama ), South America (Colombia and Venezuela), the Caribbean (Cuba, Dominican Republic, Puerto Rico) and Asia (Japan, South Korea, Taiwan).

Image https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Baseballpositions.png