Quote:
Originally Posted by
Lislchen 
"Anyway, as some of you have mentioned, the umpire would either say 'Ball' or 'Strike'. If he says 'Ball' then this means that the failed hit was the Pitcher's fault. The ball was thrown either too high, too low or too far left or right of the home plate and was therefore outside the so-called 'Strike Zone'. I won't go into detail how big the Strike Zone is exactly. You don't want to become professional Umpires after all." Or so he assumed. Hopefully. They would probably just go around telling people they fail and suck when they miss the ball. "If the Pitcher has missed the 'Strike Zone' four times, and therefore has four 'Balls' then the current Batter is allowed to go to the first base." He moved his finger across the drawing to indicate which way the batter would go.
Now, on to 'Strike'. "If the Umpire decides that the ball was indeed inside the 'Strike Zone' and the Batter still misses the ball, it is called a 'Strike'. After three 'Strikes' the current Batter is 'out', which is why the Umpire normally says 'Strike' plus how many strikes the current batter already has, for example 'Strike Two'." And not 'Strike Ten'. Cue small grin in Patroclus' direction.
"Different scenario now. Let's assume the Pitcher throws correctly and into the 'Strike Zone' and the Batter manages to hit the ball. What would he do?" Then to speed things up a little, he added, "And what would the currently Fielding Team do?"
OOC: Yes, I do know it's a little more complex than this but let's not confuse the poor magical Baseball-no0bs. ;]
"Well the batter will attempt to make it to first base, before someone in the outfield grabs the ball and throws it to the other outfielder at first base. If the outfielder can tap the base while holding the ball before the batter gets there, then the batter is out." Alice wasn't sure if that's what he was aiming for or not....