MLB / Facts & Stats

MLB facts, stats and rules

The diamond, the pitching distance, the 162-game season and the vocabulary of baseball, with sources and dates.

Baseball pitcher winding up on a mound under stadium lights (AI-generated image)AI
AI-generated image

How the league is organised

Major League Baseball has 30 clubs in the United States and Canada, in two leagues of 15 clubs, the American League and the National League. Each league has three divisions, East, Central and West. Each club plays a 162-game regular season, so the schedule holds 2,430 games, because every game counts for two clubs. The current postseason has 12 teams, six from each league.

The infield is a 90-foot square. The distance from the pitcher's plate to the rear point of home plate is 60 feet, 6 inches, and the plate sits 10 inches above the level of home plate. Outfield fence distances differ from ballpark to ballpark.

A game is made of innings. In each inning the visiting team bats in the top half and the home team in the bottom half, and a half-inning ends when the fielding team gets three outs. A regulation game is nine innings long. When the score is tied after nine innings, play continues with extra innings until one club is ahead at the end of a complete inning, or the home club takes the lead in the bottom half. There is no game clock in baseball, so the length of a game depends on how many innings are played and how long each takes.

The fielding team puts nine players on the field: the pitcher, the catcher, four infielders and three outfielders. The batting team sends its players to the plate in a fixed batting order that is handed in before the game and stays in force for the whole game, apart from substitutions that the rules permit. A batter who is awarded four balls walks to first base, and a batter who makes three strikes is out, so every plate appearance ends within a short sequence of pitches unless fouls extend it.

The pages below start from the official rules and the league's own pages, and each one shows the date its figures were last checked. The main sources are:

MLB pages

Baseball in the rainWho can stop a game for weather, when a called game counts as complete and when a game is suspended and resumed.Cleats in baseballWhat Rule 3.03 says about baseball shoes, the ordinary shoe plate and toe plate, and the ban on pointed spikes similar to golf or track shoes.Does baseball have halftime?Why baseball has no halftime, how a game is divided into innings and half-innings, and what the Official Baseball Rules say about the length of a game.Helmets in baseballWho must wear a helmet under the Official Baseball Rules, the ear-flap requirement in the Major Leagues and what happens if a violation is not corrected.Pine tar in baseballWhat the Official Baseball Rules say about pine tar on a bat handle, the 18-inch limit and how it differs from the rule for pitchers.Top and bottom of an inningWhat top and bottom mean in baseball scores and broadcasts, which team bats in each half-inning and how an inning ends.