Baseball — Pitching and the Strike Zone

The “strike zone” in baseball is known to be the volume of space which is used for a pitch to be passed through for being counted as a “strike”. It is always possible to achieve in case the batter does not swing, so the “strike zone” can be defined as the space above the so called “home plate”. Any decisions about if a pitch passed through the zone or not can be done by an umpire. He is usually positioned behind the catcher.

The pitcher and the fielding team try to get the mentioned strikes in order to end up having three of them which will result in a so called “strikeout” of that batter. At the same time the pitch which misses the strike zone is known to be called a “ball”, but only in case a batter does not swing. The batter and so the batting team try to get the more balls the better, because having four balls will allow them to take a base on balls.

Both baseball and softball can be compared depending on the level as well as the league. It also depends on which set of the rules are used. There are different definitions, such as the top of the “strike zone”, for example, can be defined in the well-known among the baseball players “Major League Official Rules” in a way of a horizontal line. This line is supposed to be at the midpoint between the top of the uniform pants and the top of the batter's shoulders. A line at the hollow beneath the kneecap is classified the bottom of the strike zone. The edges of the home plate correspond to the left and right boundaries of the strike zone.

Every time a pitch touches the outer boundary of the zone is treated as a strike as well as when a pitch is thrown down the centre. When a pitch does not pass through the so called “strike zone” and when it is the one at which the batter does not swing, is known to be called a “ball”. The active tally of both balls and strikes during a player's turn batting is simply called the “count”.

The previously mentioned “strike zone” can be treated as a space delimited by the vertical planes. It is known to be extending up from the boundaries of the so called “home plate” being simply limited at the bottom as well as top by both lower and upper horizontal planes by passing through the horizontal lines. This volume in this case takes the form of a “vertical right pentagonal prism”, which is located above the home plate. Once a pitch passes outside the front of strike zone’s definite volume, but at the same time it is curving entering this volume farther back, not being hit at the same time, then it can be described as a so called "back-door strike".

The very well-known among all the professional baseball players “Major League Baseball”, which is simply a professional baseball league that the oldest of all the four major professional sports leagues in the United States of America as well as Canada, reduces or increases the size of the strike zone for managing to control the balance of power between hitters and pitchers.

A batter is called to be “ruled out” after being struck out is the one accumulating three strikes in one batting appearance. And a batter being drawn a base on balls as well as awarded advancement to the first base is the one accumulating four balls in only one appearance. In the 19th century it took up to nine balls for a batter to earn a walk, but to make up for this, he could request the ball to be pitched low, high or medium. It is well-known that all the baseball rules provide a definition of what the strike zone” is. It is always the judgement of the umpire’s decision about the pitch passing through the “zone” on not. There are many other rules the baseball players must follow and knowing all of them might be not as simple to remember straight away, it always takes time. It is always much better to use the already previously made schemes followed by the rules of this game.

Such schematics were made by those who knows lots about making both the smart looking drawings and about the games such as baseball, being able to make the templates of the sport fields, including the baseball one. Such examples of the plans of the sport fields were made in advance by the IT specialists working for CS Odessa, Ukraine. They developed an application known to be a ConceptDraw STORE one, including the mentioned samples into it so all the ConceptDraw DIAGRAM users can use them as the drafts for their own ones.

Sample 1. Baseball Solution

There were many famous baseball players in history. Thus, such pitchers as well-known Bob Gibson and Denny McLain dominated others hitters in 1968, producing all together 339 shutouts. Thus, once in the National League, Gibson posted a 1.12 earned run average, which was the lowest in 54 years. At the same time the pitcher of “Los Angeles Dodgers” Don Drysdale threw a record 58 as well as two-thirds consecutive scoreless innings during the 1968 season.

If you like baseball the same way we do, thinking about creating a good-looking plan of the baseball field including all the necessary zones on your drawing, such as those described in this article, then you might try to do it from a scratch having such paper and pencil, but once you get to know about the drawing software ConceptDraw DIAGRAM you might definitely decide to use it instead.

How to Save a Diagram as a Web Page

Sample 2. Baseball — Pitching and the Strike Zone.

This diagram was created by experienced user using advanced manual drawing technique.

You can use the whole sample or its parts or modifications according to your needs.

Having the mentioned product of CS Odessa can ensure you in making great looking drawings within only a very short period of time having nothing else but ConceptDraw DIAGRAM and ConceptDraw STORE which is another application of CS Odessa, developed for allowing all ConceptDraw DIAGRAM users to make it possible to create professionally looking plans, maps, charts, flowcharts and diagrams having all the needed tools, such as stencil libraries full of design elements and pre-made examples and templates of the plans, such as the ones of the sport plans like a baseball field’s one.

One of the solutions of ConceptDraw STORE is known to be called a Baseball one, providing the design elements as well as the previously created templates of the baseball field and its positions. Having the mentioned solution means ensuring yourself in doing the right thing as all the examples from the mentioned application can be always used as the drafts for your own baseball related drawings.