Baseball Facts for Kids

Ten baseball facts to share with the young fan in your life, plus a plain-English baseball dictionary for parents and grandparents who are new to the game. All of them come from Big Debate: Baseball.

Baseball facts for kids

Game Day Basics: Every major league baseball is still stitched by hand: 108 double stitches of red waxed thread, and no machine has taken over the job.
The Batter's Box: A 95 mph fastball reaches the plate in well under half a second. That leaves almost no time to decide whether to swing.
Pitcher's Mound Madness: The pitcher's mound is 10 inches tall today. It was 15 inches until pitchers dominated the 1968 season, and MLB lowered it for 1969 to give hitters a chance.
Glove Work: Early baseball was played bare-handed. Gloves showed up in the 1860s, and the first players to wear them were teased for being soft.
Stealing & Speed: When bases grew from 15 to 18 inches in 2023, stolen bases jumped by more than a thousand in a single season.
Ballpark Life: The words to Take Me Out to the Ball Game were written in 1908 by Jack Norworth, who had never been to a game. He finally saw one in 1940.
Team & Dugout: Number 42 is retired across all of MLB for Jackie Robinson. On Jackie Robinson Day, normally April 15, every player wears it.
Big League Dreams: The 2024 MLB Draft picked 615 players over 20 rounds. Being drafted guarantees nothing: most draftees never play a big-league game.
Legends & History: Cy Young won 511 games. To break that record, a pitcher would need to win 20 games a year for more than 25 years.
Weird & Wild: In 1887, baseball tried giving batters four strikes instead of three. It lasted one season.

Baseball terms for kids

Cycle
Getting a single, double, triple, and home run all in one game.
Cleanup hitter
The fourth batter in the lineup, usually the team's best power hitter.
Leadoff hitter
The first batter in the lineup, usually fast and good at getting on base.
No-hitter
A complete game of nine innings or more in which the other team gets no hits.
Perfect game
A no-hitter where no batter reaches base at all. Only 24 in MLB history through 2024.
Run expectancy
The average number of runs a team goes on to score in the inning from a given base-and-out situation.
Walk-off
A play in the home team's last turn at bat that scores the winning run and ends the game.
Web gem
A spectacular catch or fielding play.
At-bat
An official turn at the plate. Walks, hit-by-pitches and sacrifices do not count as at-bats.
Batting average
Hits divided by at-bats. A .300 hitter gets a hit 3 times in 10.
RBI
Run batted in: a run the scorer credits to the batter, usually for a hit, a sacrifice, or a bases-loaded walk.
ERA
Earned run average: earned runs allowed per nine innings. Runs that score because of errors do not count.
Intentional walk
When the pitching team chooses to walk a batter on purpose.
Exit velocity
How fast the ball leaves the bat, measured in miles per hour.
Pop time
The time from the pitch hitting the catcher's mitt to the throw reaching the fielder's glove at second base.

Where the facts come from

  • Player records, career totals and season leaders: Baseball-Reference.com
  • Pitch speeds, exit velocity, sprint speed, pop time: MLB Statcast (baseballsavant.mlb.com)
  • Run expectancy (0.86 and 0.66): Tom Tango's run expectancy table, MLB 2010-2015, innings 1-8
  • Stolen-base success rate: FanGraphs, 2023 season
  • Rule changes: mound height (1969), BBCOR (2011), bases and pitch clock (2023): MLB.com and NCAA announcements
  • Hall of Fame facts and dates: Baseball Hall of Fame (baseballhall.org)
  • Youth pitching guidance: MLB Pitch Smart; Little League rulebook; ASMI
  • Hot dog estimate (2022): National Hot Dog and Sausage Council
  • Headfirst vs. feet-first slide study: Kane et al., 2002
  • Corked bat physics: Nathan et al., American Journal of Physics, 2011

Now put them to work: 50 baseball Would You Rather questions →