50 Fun Facts About MLB Baseball Trivia for Kids

How many teams play in Major League Baseball?

They are split evenly between the National League and the American League. Twenty-nine are in the United States and one is in Canada.

How many players does each baseball team have on the field at once?

The pitcher, the catcher, four infielders and three outfielders. The teams take turns batting and fielding.

If the score is still tied after the ninth inning, what happens?

They keep going until one team is ahead at the end of an inning. Softball games are only seven innings long.

How many outs does the fielding team need to end the other team's turn at bat?

Each inning has a top half and a bottom half, and each team bats until it makes three outs.

What is it called when a batter swings and misses, or lets a good pitch go by without swinging?

Fielders can also get a batter out by catching the ball before it bounces, or by tagging a runner who is off the base.

If the pitcher throws four balls to a batter, what happens?

It is called a walk, or a base on balls. A batter who is ahead in the count sometimes gets a signal not to swing at the next pitch.

A home run with runners on every base is called what?

It scores four runs, the most possible on one hit. Don Mattingly and Travis Hafner share the record of six in one season.

How far apart are the bases on a Major League field?

The bases make a square, which is why the field is called a diamond. Home plate is a five-sided slab of white rubber.

How many stitches are on a regulation baseball?

The red thread holds two saddle-shaped pieces of leather over a cork or rubber centre wrapped in yarn. It weighs about five ounces.

What colour is the thread that stitches a baseball together?

The cover is white leather, and the ball is about nine inches around.

What nickname does the World Series have because it is played in the autumn?

It is best-of-seven, so the first team to win four games takes home the Commissioner's Trophy.

In what year was the first modern World Series played?

It happened after the new American League decided to challenge the older National League. MLB counts 1869, when the first paid team was formed, as its founding year.

Which team has won the most World Series championships, with 27?

They started life as the New York Highlanders and became the Yankees in 1913. They play in the Bronx.

Which is the only Major League team based outside the United States?

They play at the Rogers Centre in Toronto, Canada. The Montreal Expos used to be the other Canadian team but became the Washington Nationals in 2005.

Which city did the Dodgers play in before they moved to Los Angeles in 1958?

They had been in Brooklyn for 68 seasons and won just one World Series there, in 1955.

Which is the oldest ballpark still used in the Major Leagues, home of the Boston Red Sox since 1912?

It has odd corners like Pesky's Pole and 'The Triangle' because it was squeezed into a busy neighbourhood.

What is the nickname of the giant left-field wall at Boston's ballpark?

It is just over 37 feet high and has a scoreboard that people still change by hand.

Wrigley Field in Chicago is famous for having what growing on its outfield wall?

It also has a hand-turned scoreboard and was the last big-league park to get lights, in 1988.

In 2016 the Chicago Cubs won the World Series after waiting how many years?

It was the longest wait for a championship in any big American sport. Their last title before that was in 1908.

Which famous slugger was nicknamed 'the Bambino' and 'the Sultan of Swat'?

He started out as a star pitcher for the Boston Red Sox before becoming a home-run hitter for the Yankees.

How many home runs did the Bambino hit in 1927, a record that stood for decades?

He was part of a Yankees line-up so scary it was called Murderers' Row. He finished his career with 714 home runs.

Why do Boston fans talk about the 'Curse of the Bambino'?

The curse was finally 'broken' in 2004. Boston has since won four titles in this century.

Who became the first African American to play Major League Baseball in the modern era, in 1947?

He played first base for the Dodgers on April 15, 1947, and won the very first Rookie of the Year award.

Which uniform number is retired by every Major League team in honour of the man who broke baseball's colour line?

Every April 15, on the anniversary of his first game, every player on every team wears that number.

'Hammerin' Hank' Aaron broke the career home run record in 1974. How many did he finish with?

His record-breaking 715th came off Dodgers pitcher Al Downing, who also wore number 44, just like Aaron.

Which record did Cal Ripken Jr., 'the Iron Man', set by never missing a game?

He beat Lou Gehrig's streak of 2,130 games, which had stood for 56 years and which people thought could never be broken.

Derek Jeter, 'the Captain', spent his whole 20-year career playing shortstop for which team?

When he was voted into the Hall of Fame in 2020, he got 396 of 397 possible votes.

Shohei Ohtani is famous for being a 'two-way player'. What does that mean?

People compare him to the Bambino, who also pitched and hit. In 2024 he became the first player ever to hit 50 home runs and steal 50 bases in one season.

Which country is Shohei Ohtani from?

Before coming to America he played for the Hokkaido Nippon-Ham Fighters and won the Japan Series with them in 2016.

Aaron Judge of the Yankees holds the American League record for home runs in a season. How many?

He broke Roger Maris's 61-year-old mark and won his first MVP award the same season. He was picked by the Yankees in the 2013 draft after playing college ball at Fresno State.

Nolan Ryan holds the record for the most strikeouts by a pitcher. About how many?

That is 839 more than the next pitcher, Randy Johnson. Ryan struck out 300 batters in a season six different times.

A pitcher who retires every batter from start to finish, nobody reaching base, has thrown what?

That means no hits, no walks, no errors and nobody hit by a pitch. It has only happened a couple of dozen times in Major League history.

In what year did the National League adopt the designated hitter, decades after the American League?

A designated hitter bats in place of the pitcher and usually does not play in the field. Now every Major League team uses one.

Why are umpires sometimes nicknamed 'Blue'?

Umpires start and end the game, call balls and strikes, and can throw players out if they argue too much.

Which song do fans sing during the seventh-inning stretch?

Fans stand up and stretch between the halves of the seventh inning. In some Asian leagues it is called the Lucky 7.

What is surprising about Jack Norworth and Albert Von Tilzer, who wrote the seventh-inning sing-along in 1908?

Most people only know the chorus. It is one of the three best-known songs in America, along with the national anthem and Happy Birthday.

Cracker Jack, the ballpark snack, is caramel popcorn mixed with what?

For more than a hundred years each box came with a little prize inside. In 2016 the toy was swapped for a code to download a baseball game.

Which big, furry green mascot with a party-horn tongue cheers for the Philadelphia Phillies?

He was created in 1978 by the same design company that made Miss Piggy for the Muppets.

Which baseball-headed mascot is thought to be Major League Baseball's first costumed mascot?

He started as a cartoon in programmes in 1963 and came to life when the Mets moved into Shea Stadium in 1964.

Where is the National Baseball Hall of Fame?

It is there because of an old legend that Abner Doubleday invented baseball in the town in the 1830s. Historians say he did not.

Which US president was the first to throw out a ceremonial first pitch on Opening Day, in 1910?

Twelve presidents have done it since. In Cincinnati, home of the first professional team, Opening Day comes with a parade.

Little League Baseball began in 1939 in which Pennsylvania town, still home to its World Series?

Carl Stotz began it as a three-team league. Today Little League has divisions for children from age 4 to 16.

Who was the first girl to win a game as a pitcher at the Little League World Series, in 2014?

She pitched a shutout for the Taney Dragons of Philadelphia and made the cover of Sports Illustrated.

A regulation baseball bat can be no longer than how many inches?

It can be no wider than 2.61 inches at the fat end. Early bats came in all sorts of shapes, including flat ones.

How many games does each Major League team play in a regular season?

Games are usually grouped in three-game series against the same opponent, with the odd two- or four-game set.

In which two states do Major League teams hold spring training?

Pitchers and catchers report first, since they need a longer warm-up period; camps run from mid-February to early April.

How many umpires work a regular Major League game?

One stands near each base; in the playoffs two more are added in the outfield.

The relief pitchers on a team are known by what name, after the area where they warm up?

A typical team carries seven relievers, including one closer, in this group.

How many innings must a starting pitcher throw to be eligible to get the win?

The win goes to the pitcher who last pitched before his team took a lead it never gave up.

By 1856, newspapers around New York were already calling baseball America's what?

The sport's first governing body followed a year later, and the National League was founded in 1876.