When a team is playing away from its home grounds the choice of innings—­i.e., who is to bat first—­goes to the home team.

A game consists of nine full innings unless called by rain, darkness or for some other cause.  If five complete innings have been played when the game stops, the score always stands and the team ahead is declared the winner.  In case of a tie at the end of the game the play continues until at the completion of a full inning one team is ahead.  That ends the game and the team ahead is the winner.

In arranging games with visiting teams it is customary to make some arrangement as to expenses, share of gate receipts or other guarantee.  It is very important in order to avoid unpleasant disputes to have this matter fully understood and agreed upon by the managers of each team before the game starts.

On account of fences, houses, and other obstacles that some baseball fields have it is customary for the umpire to decide what are called “ground rules” before the game starts.  The principal thing that mars a good game of ball next to kicking and wrangling is the tendency of the crowd to get on the field and to interfere with the players.  An easy remedy for this is simply to call the game until the spectators take their proper places.

Baseball is a good game if it is properly played.  It is unfortunate that so many amateur games are spoiled because some of the players lose their tempers in their anxiety to have their wrongs righted.  No matter how good a ball player a boy is he will never get the real benefit of the game unless he remembers that it is not the one who loses his temper but “he who ruleth his spirit” that is really entitled to the respect of his fellows.  Make up your mind to abide by the decision of the umpire just as a soldier obeys the orders of his superior officer.  It is the easiest thing in the world for an umpire to make a mistake, but he will be far less likely to correct his errors if nine angry boys are all talking to him at once than if your captain quietly goes to him with the rules or the facts behind him and states the case.  It is an old saying but none the less true that “oil catches more flies than vinegar.”

A boy who has developed a healthy interest in baseball while young will probably never lose it in after life even though his opportunities to play or even to see a game are few.  I once met a mining man in the interior of Mexico, a hundred miles from a railroad and in a town where only three people spoke the English language, and this man had not been to his home town in ten years, but he had followed his baseball team through the papers all those years and could tell you more about the players than many a man living in the town where the team played.

Such a man is what the newspapers call a “fan,” which is an abbreviation of the word “fanatic.”  There is no harm in being a baseball enthusiast, provided that we do not allow it to interfere with our work or allow our desire to witness games to take the place of systematic exercise for ourselves.