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Baseball is a bat-and-ball sport played between two teams of nine players each. The goal of baseball is to score runs by hitting a thrown ball with a bat and touching a series of four markers called bases arranged at the corners of a ninety-foot square, or diamond. Players on one team (the offense) take turns hitting while the other team (the defense) tries to stop them from scoring runs by getting hitters out in any of several ways. A player on offense can stop at any of the bases and hope to score on a teammate's hit. The teams switch between offense and defense whenever the team on defense gets three outs. One turn on offense 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.
In North America, professional Major League Baseball 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 culminating in the World Series.
In 1907, after creating many other pieces of useful eqiupment, Roger Bresnahan created the first batting helmet after getting beaned in the head one game. This was the start of helmets even though not many people wore them at all back then.
A batting helmet covers the back, top, and sides of the head, and at least one ear. The left ear is covered for right-handed batters and the right ear for left-handed batters, whichever ear faces the pitcher. Batting helmets that cover both ears are common as well, though almost exclusively worn by switch-hitters in the Major Leagues. In the minor leagues, such helmets are mandatory, except for major leaguers on rehabilitation assignments. Similar helmets are also mandatory in amateur-level baseball.
Despite the fatal beaning of Ray Chapman in 1920, batting helmets were not made mandatory in Major League Baseball until 1971, a result of several years of hospitalizations due to injury from hits to the head. However, they had been in use for several years prior to being made mandatory. In the 1950s and 1960s, players batting without helmets still used plastic inserts inside their baseball caps. After 1971, players who were grandfathered in could still choose whether or not they wanted to use a helmet. Some players, most notably Norm Cash and Bob Montgomery continued to bat without a helmet through the end of their playing careers. Montgomery was the last to do so in 1979.
Although helmets with earflaps were common in amateur sports, they were slow to gain popularity at the professional level. Ron Santo wore one of the first earflap helmets at the major league level, if not the first, upon returning to action after having his left cheekbone fracture by a pitched ball in 1966. Earflaps were adopted by the players relucantly. Some batters felt that seeing the earflap out of the corner of an eye was distracting.
