Baseball Rules Explained by a Pro Player

In this video, I'm going to teach you all the rules of baseball. So I'm Dan Blewett. I'm a former pro baseball player, and I know that baseball can be complex if you're a beginner and you're just starting to try to learn the rules and the strategy and to understand the game and to watch it better. So if you want to learn more about baseball, this video is going to be for you. So as a former pro pitcher and someone who's been playing baseball my whole life, you take for granted how complex the game is. So I realize that it can be daunting for beginners to get started and just understand and enjoy the game as they watch on TV or if you're just starting to play yourself. But in today's video, I'm going to walk you through all the rules of baseball, at least the most most pertinent ones, so you can get an understanding of the complexity and the just the really interesting nature of baseball, because, yes, it is a bit complicated, but it's also really, really deep. And that's one of the things that I love about it. And if you're new, definitely check out the links in the description below. You'll find my other video resources. You'll also find a free cheat sheet for watching better baseball. So it's got all the terminology listed. So if you're watching a game and you want a quick reference guide, you can easily download that in the description below. All right. So let's start with the field itself. So first, the baseball field is broken up into an infield and an outfield. There's three outfielders in the outfield, and there are six players on the infield. That includes the pitcher, the catcher, first base, second baseman, shortstop and third baseman. You'll also notice that there are four bases, first base, second base, third base and home is what we call home plate. So it's the fourth base. But really, you just call it home. We call it the plate or home. You don't really call it home plate and you definitely don't call it home base. So first, second, third and home. All right. So the next important feature of a baseball field are the foul line. So you'll see these two white chalk lines. They extend from the back corner of home plate all the way out and they create this fair territory. So we call it fair territory. And of course, if the ball hits the foul line, it is fair. So if it touches any part of the line, it's fair. And if it hits the yellow foul pole at the home run fence, that is a fair ball. That's a home run. Anything hit in fair territory, the batter can run to first base, then the second base, then third base, then home. It's in play, right? Anything in foul territory, if it's still in play, can be caught in the air. So it could be an out. But if it's hit on the ground and foul territory, the ball is dead. And then, of course, there's out of play, which is also a foul territory. But that's not where the fielders can go. So if the ball is thrown out of play or if it's hit out of play, the play is going to be dead. Or there's one more quirk in the rules to discuss, and that's when a ball is initially in fair territory and then rolls into foul territory. So in the infield, the ball can initially be fair and it can just roll off and go foul. Balls have spin, especially down the line. So this is pretty common. And the rule is that the ball has to reach third base or reach first base, depending on which line it's on. It has to go past third or first before curving foul to be considered still a fair ball. So if you hit a ground ball that's bouncing in fair territory and it goes past third base and then curves foul, that's still a fair ball. If you hit a ground ball down the third base line and it curves foul before it hits third base, then that will be a foul ball. So as long as it's inside fair territory past third base, then it will be fair for the rest of the play until the play is dead later. It's also important to note that home plate and all three bases in the field, they are entirely in fair territory. So if you see a ball hit down the line, it hits third base. That ball is fair. If a ball were to stop on home plate after being hit, which is pretty unlikely, but it does very once in a while happen, that ball is fair. Home plate is entirely in fair territory. OK, so who plays on a baseball field? Let's talk about the teams and innings. So there are two teams. You probably know this. There's a home team and a visiting team, which we also call the away team. The away team hits in the top half of each inning and the home team hits in the bottom half of each inning. There are nine innings in the game, and each of those nine innings are divided into two half innings. So a top half of the first and a bottom half of the first, a top half of the sixth and a bottom half of the sixth and so on. Each half inning contains three outs. When the team up to bat records three outs, then the team, the two teams switch. So the team that was in the field comes in to hit the team that was hitting goes out to field. So every half inning teams switch. So each team will play the field and they will bat for three outs. Every single inning. OK, so what's the objective of a baseball game? How do you win? The objective is to get more runs than the other team over the course of the nine inning game. So how do you get a run? You get a run by advancing to first base, then the second base, then the third base, then home. You can hit a home run and do it all yourself, or you could hit four singles and, you know, one batter gets on, then three more bat him in. Now, pro teams play nine innings. College teams here in the U.S. also play nine innings. Amateurs like high school and below, they all play seven inning games. And it's important to note that there's also extra innings. So if teams are tied after regulation, so after nine innings or seven innings for amateurs, then they'll play an additional inning. And if teams are still tied, then they'll play another and they'll keep playing another until one team pulls ahead after a complete inning and then the game will be over. OK, so how does the fielding team record the three outs to end the hitting team's time at bat? Let's talk about the bunch of different ways that they will do that. We'll cover batted balls first. So fly outs, ground outs, force outs, tag outs. And then we'll cover the pitcher hitter dynamic in more detail, which is one of the most important things to understand and one of the most interesting things to really dive into in the rules and strategy of baseball. All right, let's talk about being out versus being safe, reaching base safely versus getting out first when the batter comes up to hit and does not reach base safely. That means he is out. If he reaches base safely, then we call him safe. So he's safe at first or safe at second or safe at third if the batter hit a triple, which we'll cover in a second. Now, hitters can get out in a couple of different ways. One, the hitter can strike out, which means he did not hit the ball into fair territory during his time at bat. That means the pitcher got three strikes on him before he could hit the ball into fair territory. Hitters can also ground out, which means they hit the ball bouncing on the ground and the fielding team throws it to first before the batter can reach there. That's one of a couple of different ways the fielding team can get what's called a force out. The ball beats the runner to the base, thus forcing him out. A hitter can also fly out, which means if you hit the ball in the air and the opposing and the fielding team catches it before it hits the ground or if it hits the base or if it hits the outfield wall, those are all extensions of the ground. Then the hitter is out. Note that only fair ground balls can become outs, but foul balls hit in the air if they're still in catchable territory. So they're not out of play. They can be caught and become an out. So a fly ball, whether it's in fair or foul territory, if it's still in play and the fielder catches it, the batter is going to be out. Next, base runners who are on base can obviously get out as well. So not just the hitter. Base runners who are already on base can be tagged out by a player with the ball. He needs to be tagged with the ball itself or the ball in the fielder's glove. They can also be forced out. So if there's a runner on first and he's running to second because the batter hit a ground ball, if the shortstop, for example, were to throw the ball to second base before the runner gets to second, he would be forced out at second. So there's a bunch of different ways they can also be doubled off. So double play means to force outs on the same play or a fly ball is caught and the runner is off the base and they throw the ball back to the runner's original base before he retreats back there. That's another rule. It's called the tag up rule. So when the ball is hit in the air, runners can't just continue to run as far as they want. They have to go back to the base and retouch it. So if I was on first base and there's a fly ball hit, I have to go back to first wait till they catch the ball. Once they catch it, now I'm free to leave. And that's called tagging up. So you'll see this, especially with deep fly balls, where a runner will wait till the outfielder catches it. They'll tag up and then run to the next base as the outfielder throws and tries to get him out at the next base. So when balls are hit in the infield, it hit very hard, which we call line drives. Lots of times they have their hits so hard and they're caught so quickly that runners don't have time to get back to the original base. So those line drives will often result in a quick double play because the fielding team catches the line drive so fast and then they throw it behind the runner back to their base that they can't yet get back to and they'll get that quick double play. Now, when a hitter goes up to hit, he can also reach base safely a number of ways. Number one is by getting a base hit. That's when you hit the ball into fair territory and you reach first base before they can force you out at first. Hits include singles, doubles, triples and home runs. Those are the four different types of base hits, and they just correspond to how many bases you get when you hit the ball. So if you hit the ball and you get safely just a first and you're stopping at first base, that's a single. If you hit it and you get to second, that's a double, get to third. That's a triple. Or if you get all the way back to home, that's a home run. So singles are typically hit just through the infield or they're blooped over the infield or they hit a line drive through the infield, but they usually don't go past the outfielders. That's why they can only get one base. Doubles and triples are typically hit all the way to the outfield wall, which gives the runner extra time to run to a second base. And on triples especially, they're usually only hit to right field because when they're hit into the right field corner or into the right field gap and by gap, I mean the gap between the outfielders, it becomes a very long throw to third base from the right field corner. Because that throw is so long, it gives the runner extra time, the batter runner extra time to potentially go all the way to third base. So triples are much more rare than doubles. And when they do happen, they're almost always to right field. And lastly, there are home runs, which is when you hit it over the outfield fence in the air or you can hit inside the park home run, which is when the ball stays in play, doesn't go over the fence. But maybe it takes a weird bounce or an outfielder trips and falls. And there's it just gives the runner or the batter runner extra time to get all the way around. They're very, very rare in pro baseball. They're more common in amateur baseball, especially when there isn't an outfield fence. If you hit the ball really hard over the outfielder's head and there's no fence, it might give the batter a chance to get all the way around and touch them all. So those are the four types of base hits. There are also walks. There are also hit by pitches. You can reach base on an error. There's catcher's interference. There's a bunch of other ways to reach base safely. But hits, walks, hit by pitches and errors and fielder's choices, which we'll cover in a second, are by far the most common ways to reach first base. Now, I want to explain the fielder's choice because this is one of the most common ways players reach base. And it's really important to understand how this ties into the strategy of baseball and the rules. So on a fielder's choice, this is when the fielding team decides to get a base runner out, even when they had the option to get the batter out. So say I'm hitting and there's a runner on first base and there's one out. If I hit a ground ball to the third baseman, the third baseman has and he fields it properly. The third baseman has the option to throw it a second to get a force out to get that runner out or to throw it a first base to get me the hitter out. But it makes sense for the fielding team to get the lead runner out. That means the the runner that's farther along than any other runner. So the first the runner on first base is the lead runner. And he's going to second base. So the third baseman, if they only have one option, it makes sense for them to get the runner out at second base rather than me, the hitter at first base. So they'll throw to second base and get the force out there. And then I reached first base safely. So I didn't get a base hit because they fielded it right. So it didn't go cleanly through the infield or over the infield. So I don't deserve a hit in my statistics. But what they call it is a fielder's choice. The fielder had the choice to get multiple runners out. And they chose one that wasn't the hitter. So the hitter reached first base. These happen all the time when base runners are on base and ground balls are hit. So it's important to understand this part of the baseball rulebook. OK, let's discuss the rules and the general gameplay and some key concepts for hitting and pitching in baseball. This is where the action starts and stops. So if you have a good level of comprehension here, you're off to a really good start learning the rules of baseball at the most basic level. And you probably already know this. The pitcher throws the ball toward the catcher and the hitter swings his bat and tries to hit it. And you probably know that hitting a round ball with a round bat is really tough. Some say it's the hardest thing to do in all of sports. And I tend to agree with them. Now, the first concept to understand is the strike zone. The pitcher has to throw the ball into the strike zone to get strikes on the hitter, which you'll see here. And the concept of balls and strikes is what incentivizes the hitter to swing at pitches and the pitcher to throw the ball into a swingable area for the hitter. This sort of just like keeps the game moving along. Now, when the hitter walks up to the plate and takes his turn at bat, we call that an at bat. So in a typical game of nine innings, a hitter will get on average about four at bats. If the game goes longer, they get a lot of hits or they go into extra innings. A hitter might get five, six, seven at bats. It just depends. But on average, teams will get a minimum of three at bats in a nine inning game. And a lot of players will get four or five at bats. So let's talk about the size of the strike zone. The strike zone goes from the bottom of the kneecap to the letters of the jersey. And it extends the 17 inch width of home plate. Now, one thing to consider about the strike zone is that if any part of the ball crosses through it, then it's a strike. So because the ball has a width of its own and it could just barely touch the edge, the strike zone can actually be as wide as about 23 inches, given the width of a regulation baseball on each side of the plate. So just a little fact to consider. So the pitcher needs to throw the ball over the strike zone and the hitter needs to swing the bat when the ball is coming into the strike zone. So let's talk about the result and the outcome of that, which are potentially strikeouts and walks. Those are two of the outcomes that can come from balls and strikes. So if the pitcher gets three strikes on the hitter, it's a strikeout and the batter is out and the next batter would come up to hit. Now, if the pitcher throws four balls in the at-bat before the hitter puts the ball in play or gets three strikes, then that's called a walk and the hitter is going to be awarded first base and they just get to go down to first base and run the bases. Again, there are other ways to get on base. Like if the pitcher hits the batter with a ball, that's called a hit by pitch and the batter gets to go to first base just the same as a walk. There's catcher's interference and a bunch of other ways that the batter can reach first, but we won't go into them in detail because it's not that important for the moment. But for the main part, the most common outcomes are strikeout and a walk or a hit by pitch to get on base or to be out from not putting the ball in play. Now let's talk about balls and strikes and swinging versus not swinging. So the hitter has the option to never take the bat off his shoulder if he doesn't want to. The hitter doesn't ever have to swing. They have full discretion of what they swing at. But hitting the ball is, well, the fun part of baseball. It's one of the most fun things you can do, in my opinion. So hitters want to swing the bat and pitchers need to throw strikes because they want to avoid walking too many hitters. If you walk a lot of hitters, it's really hard to win games for a team because there's too many base runners on base. Now, only a couple hits will bring across a bunch of runs. So the best pitchers in the world, they both give up very few hits and they also walk very few batters. Now, the strike zone is not huge, but it is big enough where unless the pitcher throws it into the center portion of the plate, it's pretty hard for the hitter to square the ball up and hit it hard. So the pitcher is essentially trying to throw the ball into the strike zone, but towards the peripheral edges of the strike zone. You know, the outer corners, the inner corners, the highest part, the lowest part, that's going to make it harder for the hitter to hit the ball hard, even though the pitcher is throwing a strike. And the best hitters are very good at laying off pitches that are outside the strike zone, which we call balls, and from laying off pitches that are in the strike zone, but not good for them to hit. The best hitters are very disciplined at swinging on only pitches seen in red here that they can hit hard a higher percentage of the time. So let's talk about what happens if the hitter does not swing the bat. So if the hitter does not swing the bat, then there are three typical outcomes. Again, there are more outcomes than just these three, but these are the three most typical ones. Number one, if the pitch is in the strike zone, then the umpire calls it a strike. And we call this a called strike. And the hitter took a strike. Two, if the pitch is not in the strike zone, then the umpire will call it a ball. And that's a ball. Again, a ball is any pitch outside the strike zone. So if the pitcher threw one into the dugout, that would be a ball. If he threw it for 14 feet above the hitter, that would be a ball. If he threw it right into the grass, that would also be a ball. But in general, balls are caught by the catcher because pitchers aren't that that terrible at locating. And the third outcome is a hit by pitch. So if it's not a called strike and it's not a ball, then it pretty much would have had to hit the batter. So a hit by pitch, again, awards the hitter first base. Now, if the hitter does swing, then these are the typical three outcomes. Number one, the hitter could swing and miss, and that would be a strike. We call it a swinging strike. Number two, the hitter could hit the ball into foul territory. We'd say he fouled it off or he hit a foul ball. Now, foul balls count the same as strikes. So when you foul a ball off, it's a strike. So it would count as strike one and then it would count as strike two. But when you get to two strikes, you cannot foul out by swinging the bat. So if it's 0 and 2, and we'll talk about the count in a second and you foul a ball off, the count stays at 0 and 2. If it's 3 and 2 and you foul off five balls in a row, the count just stays at 3 and 2 until either the pitcher walks you, you swing and miss, or you put the ball in play or hit by a pitch or some other, you know, rare outcome that would end the at bat. But foul balls when when the bat is swung cannot become strike three. The only exception is on bunts. If you try to bunt a ball and you miss it, it counts a strike. If you bunt a ball foul on the first strike or the second strike, they're just strikes. But if you try to bunt the ball with two strikes and you bunt it foul, then you're called out. And then the third outcome, if the hitter swings, the bat is that he puts the ball into play. So he put it puts it into fair territory. And then, you know, it could be a fly ball or a ground ball base hit or an out. Lots of different outcomes. But those are the three when the hitter swings the bats, either a swinging strike, he misses, he fouls the ball off or he hits the ball into fair territory. And we call that putting the ball into play. All right. So let's keep moving with some more baseball rules. So I mentioned the count and the count is just a way of keeping score of the balls and strikes. So the way we list this is balls first and strike second. So we would say three balls and one strike or two balls and two strikes or no balls and two strikes. But really, we just say, oh, and one, two and two, three and one, three and oh. That's sort of how we keep the count. Now, this is something for beginners that often gets overlooked. The count is one of the most important aspects of the strategy side of baseball. The count, because again, I was a former pro pitcher. The count is absolutely critical to what's going on between the hitter and the pitcher. So the count is important because if the hitter is ahead in the count, meaning it's two balls and no strikes, the hitter is at no risk of striking out. Essentially, he's got a bunch of pitches before it even might be close that he might strike out. So the hitter then can swing it more at pitches that are better for him. He can be more selective and not swing at stuff that's on the edges of the strike zone or outside of the strike zone. So this makes it more likely for a hitter to get a good hit, especially a hard hit when the count is in his favor. Again, that's when there's more balls than strikes. Now, if a hitter falls behind in the count, so say the pitcher gets two strikes on him with no balls. The hitter is kind of desperate and is afraid he might strike out. So the hitter is going to start to swing at an expanded part of the strike zone because he doesn't want the umpire to call him out on strikes. He can't take borderline pitches anymore. And again, to take a pitch means to let it go past without swinging. A hitter can't take a pitch on 0-2 that's borderline because the umpire might call him out. Whereas on 2-0, he can easily take that pitch because he's at no risk of striking out. And if he doesn't like that pitch, he doesn't have to swing at it. So the balance between who's ahead in the count is important. When the pitcher is ahead, they have the power, because now if a pitcher has no balls and two strikes, I can throw curveballs and sliders and fastballs outside of the zone and try to get the hitter to swing at something that's not good for him to swing at, something that he can't hit very hard or something that starts as a strike and then breaks outside the strike zone. Again, like a curveball or a slider. So that's why the dynamic of the count is so important. And that changes as the bat progresses. So it could be one and one, you know, one ball, one strike. And then I get a strike on the hitter. And now it's one and two. And now I throw my best slider and it breaks into the dirt. And the hitter swings and misses because he didn't want to strike out. So he made a quicker decision to swing. And it was the wrong decision because the pitch broke out of the zone. So that's sort of how the dynamic between pitchers and hitters works. It's a constant fluctuating power dynamic. And the count is a really huge part of that. So pitchers who get ahead in the count are much better than pitchers who don't typically, because when you're ahead in the count consistently as a pitcher, you have the ability to throw more of what's good for you and what's bad for the hitter. And when the hitter gets ahead in the count, they can be more selective and sway more aggressively, which makes them more likely to hit the ball hard and far and do damage to the fielding team with doubles, triples and home runs. All right. Thanks so much for watching. I hope my video on baseball rules was helpful to you. Obviously, as a beginner, baseball can be really challenging game to understand. I've also linked in the description below to a couple of different things. Number one, there's other videos that explain some other rules in detail, like the infield fly rule, which is a little bit hard to understand at times. I've explained baseball positions in much more detail in a separate video. And I've also linked to a free baseball watching guide. It's a cheat sheet that if you can print it out, it'll show you all the different terminology that you need to know if you're watching a game of baseball at home so you can print the sheet out. And it'll tell you all the sort of like the cliff notes, the shorthand of what you need to know to remember to be a better baseball watcher. So if you'd like to download that, it's free. You can find that in the description links below. Be sure to subscribe to my channel. As you now know, I do tons and tons of baseball videos trying to teach the strategic side of the game, the skill side of the game, all that good stuff. So if you enjoyed today's video, definitely subscribe, because there's a lot more to help you along in your baseball journey.