Some years ago, Europeans wondered talking about baseball. The most common questions were “Why do we need this American game?” and “How can this boring game be interesting?” and so on. But if looking deeper into this game one start to understand tactical rules that can change after each pitching. After some time, you start to understand why USA enjoy this game. Moreover, in America baseball is the most popular sport, national game. Thus, Europe has been actively joining baseball fans’ camp during the recent years.

Further we will see the popularity of baseball in the world. But of course, we will start with the strongest league – MLB.

MLB

Major League Baseball consists of American and National leagues and they do not depend on each other. Every single league divides on Eastern, Central and Western Divisions. There is an obvious difference between these two leagues. The National league follows ancestral baseball traditions, where the pitcher also hit the ball on an equal basis with other players. In 1973 the American League for greater show decided to put an appointment hitter in better line instead of pitcher, whose task was to hit the ball without leaving the field. The peculiarity is that the pitcher to serve the ball and his hit is usually poor. In view of this, the matches of American league are more spectacular for fans while the National League is aimed at tactical game. In 1997 it was decided to increase the number of fans and thus the so called “Interleague play” was accepted. Since that time, each team from 162 matches in regular season must play 15-18 matches against teams from the other league. Such differences in number of matches relates to the fact that leagues have unequal number of teams – AL has 14 teams and NL has 16.

After a regular season play-off begins. Play-off consists of 4 teams from each league – 3 winners of the divisions and one team, which receives Wild Card. In other words, it is a team which received more victories than others but it is an exception for division winners. Play-off also takes place within leagues. The first game in play-off is called division series where the game lasting until 3 winners will be determined. The winners take part in the championship series, which defines 4 winners. As a result, the winners of league are decided. The pinnacle of baseball season is Baseball Series Games, where the world champions are identified. The rules of “Interleague play” and the Series of Word Games are quite simple – games are played per the rules of the side where the game takes place. The structure of the Minor Leagues in America almost completely depends on the MLB teams. Every MLB team has several associated teams. Their level is determined in decreasing order- Class AAA, class AA, class A (class A-Advanced, class A and Short-Season A), R (rookie–newcomers, which are divided into Rookie-Advanced Class and Rookie). There are also an Independent Leagues, teams of which are not connected with the MLB teams, but still there are out-of-season leagues where games take place regardless of MLB season. These leagues are usually used by MLB clubs for the practice of young talents who couldn’t play certain number of matches during the season because of injuries or for any other reasons. Draft in MLB completely differs from other American leagues. Therefore, the system of training of the baseball players takes a lot of time and significantly differs from athletic training for other sports.

Per this, many players turn out at the lower games of draft and the elite of the first game can even never play for the team of the Major League. There are also other differences, for example: draft-picks in baseball are permanent. If the contract of good plyer ends with certain teams another club which signs with him a new one must give 1 or 2 draft picks to his old team. The draft cannot involve players from other countries. The agreements with players are contracted on individual basis while the foreign player bathes for money from club of other country. And, first of all, there is separate draft, which is quite difficult to understand. The draft of 5-th rule exists to equalize the number of strong young players among organizations. Those who has a few strong players can take them from another team that has more strong ones.

We have briefly examined the organization of baseball in the USA and Canada. Learn more about baseball in other countries in our further posts.