How baseball works

Two teams, three outs, runs and innings. The whole game in about two minutes.

The rule: Get three outs before they score. Then it's your turn to bat.

Two teams

One team bats. One team fields.

The batting team sends up one hitter at a time, trying to hit the ball and run the bases. The fielding team — that's you — tries to get them out. This whole app is about the fielding half.

Outs

Three outs and everybody switches.

Catch a fly ball, beat a runner to a base, or tag them with the ball — that's an out. Three outs end the inning: the batting team grabs their gloves, and now YOU get to bat.

Runs

A run scores when a runner touches home.

Runners go to first base, then second, then third, then home — always in that order. Every runner who makes it all the way around scores one run. Your job as a fielder is to stop that.

Innings

Nine innings. Most runs wins.

An inning is one turn batting for each team. Big-league games have nine of them. Whoever has more runs at the end wins. That's the whole game — everything else is detail.

Your very first play.

Ground ball to you at shortstop, nobody on base. Only one runner to worry about: the batter. Tap where the throw goes.

Open the interactive lesson to make the call yourself.