Baseball


Background
Historians date the game of baseball back to the era of Egyptian temples built more than 40 centuries ago where drawings depicting baseball were found.  There are other connections to Chinese, French and North American tribes.  The most popular theory seems to be that the game was invented by the English and was then brought to America by early settlers. 

Athlete Development
Players in BC begin playing baseball at five years of age.  They participate on a recreational basis for a number of years before entering into tournament play at a local and provincial level.  Competitive tournament play generally begins at age ten.  Aspiring athletes compete for spots on local teams that challenge for provincial titles that are stepping stones to Western Canada, Regional and National tournaments.

The BC Games represents the entry level for athletes into the Baseball BC High Performance Program.  These athletes are evaluated at the BC Games for Baseball BC’s elite programs such as the BC Selects.  The Selects team competes in the Baseball Canada Cup on an annual basis.  BC has played the National Championship title game in seven of the last 10 years.

The BC Summer Games baseball tournament is a preview of many of the players that will appear on the 2012 Provincial Selects team. 

How to Watch Baseball
Baseball is a game that demands blinding speed and explosive power involving individual action within a team sport.  It is played everywhere from playgrounds and back alleys to community fields and state of the art stadiums.  Played right, Baseball looks like the easiest game in the world.  As quoted in a famous baseball movie from 1988, "This is a very simple game.  You throw the ball, you catch the ball, you hit the ball.  Sometimes you win, sometimes you lose, sometimes it rains."

Baseball is a bat-and-ball sport played between two teams of nine players each.  The goal of baseball is to score runs by hitting a thrown ball with a bat and touching four bases arranged at the corners of a ninety-foot square, or diamond.  Players on one team (the batting team) take turns hitting while the other team (the fielding team) tries to stop them from scoring runs by getting hitters out in any of several ways.  The teams switch between batting and fielding whenever the fielding team gets three outs.  One turn at bat for each team constitutes an inning; nine innings make up a professional game.  The team with the most runs at the end of the game wins.

For more info on Baseball, contact Baseball BC at www.baseball.bc.ca or (604) 586-3310.