One of the sports that the USA is well-known for is baseball, and while not every American is interested in this sport or sports in general, it does play a huge part in the identity of the USA. In fact, it’s been dubbed as America’s Pastime, with people enjoying watching the sport, from parents watching their kids play in little league matches to people going to watch a professional game at a stadium. If you’re the type of person that doesn’t usually follow sports, or you’re generally just interested in other things like football, hockey, or basketball, but your friends and family are diehard baseball fans, it can feel somewhat isolating when sitting in on conversations about the Mets, Yankees, or Red Sox. If you’ve decided to take the time to learn about baseball and to begin following the sport in general, it may feel slightly overwhelming. This is why we’ve created this guide for you to follow, providing tips on how to get into this great sport and start feeling more involved with your baseball-loving pals.
Learn The Rules
Your first step when getting into a game like baseball is to learn the rules. While you can watch a baseball game on TV or at a stadium and still enjoy the atmosphere, it will be far more enjoyable if you have a clue about what’s going on. Of course, you’ll be able to follow the scores and see when your team is winning, but you might not grasp how they’ve gotten to that stage. This journey is all part of it and can be far more exciting when you see that if the next player hits a home run, they’re going to win the game.
Start Watching Games On TV
Once you do have a good grasp on how scoring works and what the rules are overall, you should start checking out games on TV. This will then allow you to start putting that knowledge into practice. There will also likely be scenarios in the games you watch that you wouldn’t learn about from your basic research. In cases like this, you can then take that viewing experience and learn about it further with more advanced and niche research, further expanding your overall knowledge of the game.
Pick A Team To Support
There’s a certain limit when watching sports as to how invested you’ll be in the game. Simply enjoying the sport itself can make any game entertaining to watch as you’ll be focused on the quality of the pitching or batting of the players, but overall, to really get riled up or excited about the results of the game, you’ll need to be supporting one team in particular. Most people will generally choose to support a team that they have some sort of connection to, which is usually the team of their hometown or city. For example, if you live in Boston, you may support the Red Sox, or if you live in New York, you’ll support either the Yankees or Mets. Of course, not every city has a team in the MLB, so if you don’t have a team in either the American or National Leagues, you’ll have to choose who to support. You might support your local town in a lower league for a start, but you then might support whichever MLB team is closer to your hometown. Or simply choose one that you like the look of.
Make Things More Interesting
If you are watching a game that your team isn’t involved in, you can still help yourself to become more invested in the game. A popular method here is to place a bet on the outcome of the game. You can find lots of online casinos and betting sites that will allow you to bet on the results of MLB games, and you could even turn your evening into a high-octane casino night, too. You could find a proper casino with a live dealer just for you and your friends, where you can play some live blackjack or roulette while also betting on and watching the big game. Don’t forget to supply the snacks and beers, too, to really turn things into an enjoyable evening.
Discuss The Game With Your Friends
One of the main reasons that people get into a sport, and this is likely going to be the case for yourself, is for the social aspect. Learning to enjoy something that your friends like or getting into something to expand your social circle can be very rewarding. But the chances are, you’re only going to learn so much on your own. There’s no sense in pretending you’re an expert to impress others. Be open and honest that you’re new to the sport, and start picking the brains of your friends who are invested and have a deeper understanding of the sport than you do. The chances are that you’re going to not only learn a lot more nuance about the game itself but asking for the opinions and knowledge of your friends is going to make them feel as though their opinions and intellect are highly respected and give them somewhat of an ego boost.
Learn About The Players
While the teams as a whole are an incredibly important factor in baseball, many fans will generally become more interested in specific players, following their records and achievements. You’ll want to start doing your research on these individuals, and in doing so, you’ll start to find yourself becoming a fan of particular players. These players will usually be in the team you support, but it’s also worth doing your research on some of the greats throughout the MLB. Not only should you be checking out the best players in the game today, but you’ll also want to cast your eye back over the years and look at the achievements of some of the greatest personalities in the sport. There are many baseball legends that have wowed fans of the past, such as Babe Ruth, Hank Aaron, Lou Gehrig, and Joe DiMaggio, to name a few.
