Baseball

Baseball
Baseball has always been truly the predominant team sport in the United States, and it is hard to find a high school or college that does not field a team. The sport has also been increasing in popularity internationally and, besides such well known hotbeds of baseball as Latin America and Asia, new professional teams and leagues are sprouting up in places that many people would never have associated with the game – such as Switzerland. The fact that baseball will become an Olympic sport in 2008 is a testament to the sport’s worldwide popularity.

Global Scouting Bureau bridges the geographical gaps to connect the players, teams, and fans of the baseball world together in one place. Since our inception in 1998, GSB has helped thousands of baseball players receive professional contracts and college scholarships. We have helped dozens of professional teams, and a large number of colleges, from around the world to find the talent they need to fill out their rosters.

Players, coaches, and leagues know that they can look to GSB to help skilled athletes and teams in search of talent to find each other.

Professional Baseball
Global Scouting Bureau has gotten over 1600 players signed to professional contracts in more than 17 countries, and with all current Independent League and Major League Baseball teams. Our proven track record of success is recognized throughout the baseball world – even to the extent that GSB has arrangements with various professional teams and leagues to subcontract part of their scouting to us.

Throughout the year, GSB holds professional showcase events attended by a variety of professional baseball scouts who are able to assess and document player skills. Players have their abilities documented in our online database, where they become available for review by teams and scouts from around the world. Often, players with the right skills are offered contracts by the end of the showcase event.

College Baseball
A college team’s recruitment of players can only be so extensive. Limitations of time, budget, and geography are major constraints even for the largest athletic programs, let alone schools with more limited resources. With hundreds of schools to sort among, most high school players looking to bring their game to the next level simply cannot count on getting exposure to more than a dozen or so colleges and universities.

GSB can help level the recruiting playing field by providing colleges and universities access to a large pool of players from across the USA and the rest of the world. Likewise, GSB is able to bring exposure to players who otherwise may not have been recruited because of geographic or budgetary limitations that have nothing to do with a players skills or determination.

Throughout the year, GSB holds college-oriented showcase events attended by a variety of college coaches and scouts who are able to assess and document player skills. Players have their abilities documented in our online database, where they become available for review by college coaches and scouts. Often, players with the right skills are offered scholarships by the end of the showcase event.

Source: Global Scouting Bureau

---

Baseball is a bat-and-ball sport played between two teams of nine players each. The goal is to score runs by hitting a thrown ball with a bat and touching a series of four bases arranged at the corners of a ninety-foot square, or diamond. Players on one team (the batting team) take turns hitting against the pitcher of the other team (the fielding team), which tries to stop them from scoring runs by getting hitters out in any of several ways. A player on the batting team can stop at any of the bases and later advance via a teammate's hit or other means. The teams switch between batting and fielding whenever the fielding team records three outs. One turn at bat for each team constitutes an inning; nine innings make up a professional game. The team with the most runs at the end of the game wins.

Evolving from older bat-and-ball games, an early form of baseball was being played in England by the mid-eighteenth century. This game and the related rounders were brought by British and Irish immigrants to North America, where the modern version of baseball developed. By the late nineteenth century, baseball was widely recognized as the national sport of the United States. Baseball on the professional, amateur, and youth levels is now popular in North America, parts of Central and South America and the Caribbean, and parts of East Asia. The game is sometimes referred to as hardball, in contrast to the derivative game of softball.

In North America, professional Major League Baseball (MLB) teams are divided into the National League (NL) and American League (AL). Each league has three divisions: East, West, and Central. Every year, the champion of Major League Baseball is determined by playoffs that culminate in the World Series. Four teams make the playoffs from each league: the three regular season division winners, plus one wild card team. Baseball is the leading team sport in both Japan and Cuba, and the top level of play is similarly split between two leagues: Japan's Central League and Pacific League; Cuba's West League and East League. In the National and Central leagues, the pitcher is required to bat, per the traditional rules. In the American, Pacific, and both Cuban leagues, there is a tenth player, a designated hitter, who bats for the pitcher. Each top-level team has a farm system of one or more minor league teams. These teams allow younger players to develop as they gain on-field experience against opponents with similar levels of skill.

Source: Wikipedia