Eight Baseball Trivia Facts You Probably Didn't Know

Just how much of a major league baseball fan are you? Sure, you might know exactly what is going on during a game and you might also know who all the famous players are at the moment. But does your knowledge extend as far as knowing the little tidbit trivia about the game itself as well?

Remember that you may not really know anything about it if you don't know the little details about the game's history. Here are a few fun facts and trivia about the game that you probably do and probably don't know.

• The baseball great you know as Joe DiMaggio is actually the only baseball player to have ever played in four World Championship teams. He was able to do this in his first four years as a major league player and at that time he was playing with the Yankees.

• A pitcher by the name of Mickey Lolich was able to hit only one home run the whole time he was playing baseball and it was in the 1968 World Series game. He was a baseball pitcher for 16 years.

• Baseball greats Catfish Hunter, Robin Yount, Bob Feller, and George Sisler share one thing in common; they have all never played in the minor leagues and actually went straight to the majors.

• Baseball legends Lou Gherig and Roger Hornsby are the only two other players who actually hit over 300 record home runs. They are eclipsed only by one other legend who hit 714 homeruns before retiring in 1935: Babe Ruth.

• Baseball is based on an older game from England known as Rounders. It was British immigrants who brought the game to North America and it evolved from there to become of the most loved sports in human history. It was the most recognized sport in the United States by the end of the nineteenth century.

• Baseball is a widely established game not only in the United States but in other countries as well including Japan, Canada, Australia, Mexico and the Dominican Republic. A formal baseball league outside of the Americas was first founded in Cuba in the late 1800s.

• A typical MLB team consists of about 25 players. This includes 8 position players, 5 starting pitchers who are rotated, six relief pitchers, one catcher for backup, two infielder and two outfielder backups, and a seventh relief player. But the game really only needs 9 players per team playing on the field at a time.

• Baseball is one of the few games that do not involve players trying to beat a certain time, unlike basketball or American Football. The standard is for players to play nine innings. However, it is now more likely that games last longer than they used to in the past.

At present, a typical MLB game can last anywhere between an hour to an hour and a half. The Major League Baseball average is a game that can last for 2 hours and 45 minutes.