Rick Perkey Jr.
English 151-54
A.Kornacki
February 27th, 2013
Baseball & Ice Hockey The differences between baseball and ice hockey, there are many differences to these sports, but there are also some similarities. They both are sports that men play; they both use some type of hitting device (baseball uses a bat, ice hockey uses a stick). They also use either a ball or a puck to hit. Another similarity is they both have coaches and managers to run their teams and put the players in their right spots to play the game. They also both wear some kind of uniform and protective equipment. There is so much more to these sports; here is a little about baseball and how different it is from hockey. Baseball is a bat and ball sport, played between two teams consisting of nine players. The idea is to score runs by hitting a ball with a bat and running bases. There are four bases on a baseball flied: first base, second base, third base, and home plate. The field is in the shape of a diamond; the corners reach 90 feet. Professional baseball is called Major League Baseball, or the MLB. The teams are divided into the National League (NL) and the American League (AL); they each have three divisions: the East, West and Central divisions. Players on one team take turns at swinging the bat to get hits. They try for the best hits they can get. When a batter gets a hit, he runs the bases. Depending on what kind of hit he got depends on how many bases he can run. Most first hits only get a batter to first base. If they hit the ball really good, they can get a home run, which is running all the bases and scoring a run at home plate. While a batter is at bat, the pitcher tries to do everything to strike the batter out. The pitcher tries to get the batter to swing at the ball but miss, what consists in a strike or the pitcher throws strikes, and the batter doesn’t swing and misses them. Another player on the opposite team in the outfield also tries to get the batter out by either throwing ball to the base that batter is running to, or just catching the ball the batter hit; this is an automatic out. When the team that’s up to bat gets three outs (any way they get them), they switch places with the opposite team and now are in the outfield. The same rules apply; the team gets to bat, and if they get three outs, then the teams switch places again. Each time a team is up to bat and gets three outs this consists of an inning; nine innings make up an entire professional baseball game. The team with the most runs is the winner. To end the baseball season, two of the best teams compete in the World Series, and the winning team is the champions. Baseball also does not run on a timed clock like in hockey. Hockey runs on three, twenty minute periods each and fifteen minute breaks in between the two periods. This is nice for the fans to get up and stretch their legs and use the restrooms, or whatever they need to do before the other periods start up again. This helps with the sales of food, drinks, and merchandise as well. It’s nice to look at what they have for sale at the games; they have all kinds of sports memorabilia to buy. It’s hard to find such things unless you search online. Another cool thing about ice hockey is they have the Zamboni that sometimes they let people ride. Ice Hockey is a team sport played on the ice. Players use wooden or composite sticks to shoot hard rubber hockey pucks, which they try to shoot into the opposite teams net to score points. Every score equals one point. We don’t call it ice hockey anymore, just simply hockey. The game is played between two teams of six men on the ice (five skaters and one goalie). A team consists of four lines of three forwards, three pairs of defense man, and two goalies. Five members of the team skate up and down the ice trying to make the puck in the net and score a point on the opposite team. Each team has a goal tender that tries to stop the puck from going in the net.