American Major League Baseball Playoffs - 2018

[Brian Peacock]

Can the outfielders catch the ball with their non-gloved hand?

[laklak]

Yes.

[Hermit]

...ya'll threw off the yolk of Mexican oppression...

That typo... Real egg-on-face material. Not even blaming it on autocomplete can save you.

Or were you just yolking?

[Hermit]

Can the outfielders catch the ball with their non-gloved hand?

Yes.

If it's anything like catching a cricket ball on the full near the stumps that is being returned from anywhere near the boundary rope, not wearing gloves can be a bruising experience, though.

[Scot Dutchy]

That's why they wear gloves. Cricketers dont.

[Brian Peacock]

Can the outfielders catch the ball with their non-gloved hand?

Yes.

If it's anything like catching a cricket ball on the full near the stumps that is being returned from anywhere near the boundary rope, not wearing gloves can be a bruising experience, though.

I was watching one of the baseball bloobers vids, and though it's only a sample of failures, it looks like the glove is actually a hindrance when it's relied on to catch a ball that's coming over the shoulder of the gloved hand - bringing the other hand round would at least place a palm towards the incoming ball, and it'd be easier to try a two-hander.

[Scot Dutchy]

Remember their poor soft gentle hands.
At school cricket we were told to use vinegar to harden the hands.

[pErvinalia]

Before the start of the cricket season I take a ball with me on my beach walks and pass it hard from hand to hand to build up some meat on the hands. Even still, the first game I always wind up with bruises. Sometimes it's unavoidable, given the hardness of the ball and the speed it gets hit at.

[Scot Dutchy]

Never tried vinegar? It did work. We also did training to harden the hands.

[Sean Hayden]

Pitching is probably the most interesting aspect. It's amazing what some of these guys are able to do with a ball.

[Sean Hayden]

The double play is another interesting feature.

[JimC]

Do pitchers try to kill the batter, like good fast bowlers in cricket try to kill the batsmen?

[Forty Two]

...ya'll threw off the yolk of Mexican oppression...

That typo... Real egg-on-face material. Not even blaming it on autocomplete can save you.

Or were you just yolking?

Nope, just a typo.

[Forty Two]

That's why they wear gloves. Cricketers dont.

To try to make this comparison is really apples to oranges. In baseball, the ball is hit a lot harder than in cricket. The MLB has tracked average off-bat velocity. Baseball hitters average 90+ mph (144kph) hits (That's 2 or 3 times the speed of the average cricket hit). A harder hit ball would be more dangerous to catch and painful even if successfully and properly caught. In cricket, the batsmen, while certainly capable of hitting the ball with high velocity, do not, because the strategy of the game rarely calls for it. The cricket ball is heavier, so it tends not to be hit in the air as far or as often.

In cricket, a ball struck along the ground is considered safe, because you cannot be caught out. Many balls in cricket are hit along the ground, with little velocity, making it simple and safe to pick up the ball. But, the bowler has to bounce the ball to the batter, which cuts the velocity down. So, even the fastest bowlers don't throw a cricket ball as fast as baseball pitches, and the ball is slowed down by the bounce on the ground. That means the force coming off the bat is less, and since the cricket ball is heavier, it takes much more force to get the same speed off the bat - the result is a slower ball.

In baseball, a ground ball results in an out about 75% of the time. The strategy of baseball requires batters to hit the ball on line drives or in the air as often as possible. Hard ground balls are also more common in baseball. Great skill is still required of baseball fielders, who have much less margin for error than a cricketer. A single misplayed ball may cost a team a run. In a game where each team averages between 4 and 5 runs per game, a single run can have a huge impact on the game. In cricket, a misplayed ball can sometimes result in a 4, or in very rare cases, a 6. But in a sport where the scores run up in the hundreds, an individual boundary will have less of an effect.

Originally, baseball didn't have gloves either, but as the ball itself changed, and speeds increased, the players adopted a glove. It's kind of like how some positions in cricket wear cages over their faces and a healthy amount of padding on their bodies. It's how the game is played. They're not pussies or unmanly for doing it. Baseball adopted a helmet for batters too - mainly because pitchers started throwing the ball faster. Baseball pitches are slow at 100 km per hour (80mph) and many pitchers can throw the ball over 90, 100 mph and faster.

They're 63 feet from the plate. If you've ever stood in the batter's box and had a baseball thrown to you at even 70mph, you'd know what I'm talking about. Imagine 100 mph. And, then the velocity of that ball hit the 90 or 100 or so in a line drive directly at a player in the in-field? Are you going to catch that with a bare hand?

None of that is a criticism of the game of Cricket, which is a great game. It's not an attempt to one-up cricket, or to say that baseball is a more manly game. They're different games, both good.

[Forty Two]

Pitching is probably the most interesting aspect. It's amazing what some of these guys are able to do with a ball.

Indeed, standing at home plate, it's like 60 1/2 feet from a raised mound to the plate. If a pitcher throws the ball at 95mph, it takes 4/10th of a second for the ball to travel that distance. The batter must decide whether to swing in about 1/10th of a second. And, the pitcher can throw a slider, curve ball, screw ball, splitter, and many other pitches. The catcher is signalling the pitcher and they agree on what will be thrown - the speen might be 86mph on pitch one, and curveball up and in, and in the next pitch it's a 100 mph fastball. The batter has to take cues from the pitcher, like how he grips the baseball before he throws it, in order to determine what the ball is going to do. The batter decides whether to swing no later than about 30 feet from the plate (half way).

I've always wished I could be good at baseball. I was terrible as a kid, due to my poor eyesight. It basically disqualified me from the game. It is such a precision sport, and it's an unforgiving sport. It's a sport of individual achievement, as a member of a team, but the focus is on the individual. A pitcher. A batter. The fielder in play at the time. Sometimes multiple throws. All mistakes are seen and recorded all the time - the fans the teammates, everyone sees if you mess up. Everyone knows if you should have caught it or hit it. Everyone sees your glory, and everyone sees your failures.