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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 a series of four markers called bases arranged at the corners of a ninety-foot square, or diamond. Players on one team (the offense) take turns hitting while the other team (the defense) tries to stop them from scoring runs by getting hitters out in any of several ways. A player on offense can stop at any of the bases and hope to score on a teammate's hit. The teams switch between offense and defense whenever the team on defense gets three outs. One turn on offense 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.
In North America, professional Major League Baseball teams are divided into the National League (NL) and American League (AL). Each league has three divisions: East, West, and Central. Every year, the champion of Major League Baseball is determined by playoffs culminating in the World Series.
