Interesting things about baseball

March 18, 2012 | In: Sport Facts

In order to play a game of baseball, we practically need two things: a ball and a baseball bat. We look at it today as the true American sport. But, in fact, the origins of this game are a little uncertain. It is said that the ancient Egyptians played it too, and in London, at the British Museum, we can see a 2000 year old ball. In some part of Europe, a familiar game is still played. It’s called Oina and it’s rarely seen in Romania and Moldova.

But the baseball game, as we know it today, was founded by Alexander Cartwright, the man who modeled it up to the stick and the ball that we use today. It happened in 1846. And by the way, did you know that the ball used to play baseball has 108 stitches? The first rule-based game was played when he was 26, in 1846, in Hoboken.

Let’s get to the strange facts now:

Did you know that the odds of a fan being hit by a ball are 1 in 250,000?

The ruler of Havana, and contester of American Democracy, Fidel Castro, was a star baseball player at the University of Havana.

The oldest baseball stadium in use today is the Fenway Park in Boston. It’s been in use for the past 100 years.

The longest baseball game played was between the Milwaukee Brewers and the Chicago White Sox, and lasted for eight hours and 6 minutes. In fact, fans had to come back the next day to see the end of the game.

If you calculate the possibilities of playing the same game in your lifetime, you’d find out that the odds are 1 in 13,000,000. So don’t worry. Just play the game.