Of the four major sports (football, basketball, hockey, and baseball), Baseball is the most unique. I find that the more I think about baseball, the more I realize that the approach you take to players, field conditions, strategy is much different than the other three majors.
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Here are some distinct differences.
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In basketball, the skills of a center, are very different than the skills of a point guard. In football, the skills required to play running back are very different than the skills required to play defensive end. And in hockey, the skills required to be a defenseman are very different than those of the point. However in all of these sports, a team can score points if their defense does its job. Defense can create offense. These differences lead to lots of types of players being able to play these other sports without grasping the big picture or acquiring all of the skills necessary to play the positions of the game (i.e. You can hide players in positions if they lack common skills). Baseball is unique because all players must play defense (fielding balls and hitting targets with their throws), all players must play offensive (requiring them bat vs a number of pitchers), and all players mentally mentally process signs and strategy received from the coach.
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In terms of field conditions, all baseball fields are different sizes unlike football, basketball, and hockey. Since the dimensions of these other playing surfaces are the same, the strategy taken from game to game, can be practiced precisely on any practice surface. All baseball fields have different dimensions therefore the strategy on a big field may be very different from a small field both offensively and defensively. It is the only sport where before the game, the umpire has to explain things such as out of play areas, interference areas, and what happens if the ball gets wedged under a fence, in a drain, or touched by a fan.
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Strategy for baseball is very underated! As a matter of fact, baseball coaching is underated. While the other sports have deep playbooks filled with audibles, counters, and penalty kill strategies, none of this compares to the amount of thought put into preparing for a baseball game. The casual fan watches, critiques and sometimes complains about the coaches decisions but they really have no idea how much they don’t know about what goes into the decisions baseball coaches have to make. For those fans, I created an abbreviated list of the things that keep FUNcoach up at night.
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When to steal second, when to steal third, when to double steal, when to sacrifice bunt, when to suicide squeeze, when to bunt for a base hit, when to pinch hit, when to pinch run, when to double switch, when to change pitchers, when to hit and run, when to change defense based on batting count, when to change offense based on batting count, when to intentionally walk a batter, when to bring the infielders in, when to bring the outfielders in, when to shift the fielders, who will cover the bunts, when to play five infielders, who to bat in what position, who pitches in what games, which stats matter, when to shut up, who runs the team when I get thrown out for not shutting up, what are the uniform colors, what opinions to actually listen to, what opinions to pretend to listen to, who’s got my back,…
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Play Ball!
