teammates and coaching staff. They teach valuable life skills such as communication and teamwork. Plus, sports provide countless hours of entertainment for millions of people each year. Two well-known sports are soccer and baseball. Professional teams for both sports have large followings. These two sports are very different. Let’s take a look at professional soccer and professional baseball to better understand the differences.
Equipment
The most noticeable difference between the two sports would be the equipment. In professional baseball, the players may have a durable wooden baseball bat. Batting helmets are worn. Gloves will differ depending on the position of the player. The similarity in equipment for the two sports is cleats. Both soccer and baseball players will wear cleats, although the design of the cleat is different. Soccer players wear shin guards for protection but do not need other equipment unless playing goalie.
The baseball is much smaller than the soccer ball. The diameter of a baseball is about 3 inches. The diameter of a soccer ball is about 8.5 inches. A baseball is a rubber-covered cork core covered with leather.
Field
Another obvious difference is the arenas where these sports are played. Professional baseball takes place on a baseball diamond. Professional soccer is played on a soccer field that is a rectangle with goals on opposite sides. Both fields are in stadiums where there is room for fans to watch the games in person. There are also announcer booths and areas for streaming these games for fans to watch on television or online.
Objectives
For both sports, the team that has a higher score wins. In baseball, scoring is based on runs. A batter hits the ball with the hopes of being able to get on base. There are four bases. A run is scored when the runner crosses the home plate. In soccer, a goal is scored by putting the soccer ball past the opposing goalie and into the net.
Defense occurs in both sports. In soccer, it is a continual switch, with the team not in possession of the soccer ball being on defense. In baseball, each team has a turn in the field playing defense while the other team is at-bat.
Players
In professional soccer, 11 players are on the field for each team. Up to 20 players can be on the game-day roster, leaving room for nine substitute players for each team. In professional baseball, there are nine players on the field at a time. The number of players that bat each inning depends on how quickly outs are obtained.
Length
There are nine innings in professional baseball. During one inning, each team has a turn at-bat. The team has three outs before switching with the opponent. A professional soccer game is 90 minutes long. The match is divided into 45-minute halves. If the teams are tied at the end of regulation time, two additional extra play overtimes may be used to break the tie.
The baseball season is also significantly longer than the soccer season. The Major League Soccer (MLS) regular season consists of 34 matches, half of which are played at the team’s home stadium. The Major League Baseball (MLB) regular season typically consists of 162 games per team.
Sports draw in many athletes and fans due to their fast-paced and competitive nature. Professional sports have wide fan bases. Stadiums may be packed with fans while thousands more are watching on television at home. Sports are popular for many different reasons. Baseball is known as America’s pastime. Soccer has much wider fan bases throughout the world but has been growing in popularity. The biggest differences between the two professional sports are the length of the season, the length of the game, and the objectives. Both gain fans from a young age and can be wonderful youth recreational sports.
