 Now that we understand the field itself and if you're brand new to baseball I suggest starting with the video on the field first But once you've got that down, it's now time to take a look at where the players themselves Stand and what the different positions are Baseball is unique in that it is one of the few sports that the defense will have the ball most of the game And so at any one time the defensive team will have nine players in the field You will recall that this circle of dirt in the middle of the infield is called the pitchers mound And this is because it is named after the player who stands here who is called the pitcher The pitchers job is to throw the ball over home plate and the batter who is on the other team will try to hit the ball But there are many times when either the batter will miss or he won't swing at the pitch in the first place So we need someone behind home plate who can catch the ball and so we have the catcher Eventually though the batter will hit the ball out into fair territory. So the defensive team needs players out here to catch it The players in the infield are called infielders and there are four of them This does not include the pitcher in the catcher who are part of what is called the battery Although you probably won't hear that term used very much As for the four infielders the guy who stands beside first base is the first baseman and I'll stress that the majority of the time He's not actually standing on first base, but rather he is near it The guy to the right of second base is the second baseman and the guy by third base is the third baseman Which leaves us the guy who's on the left side of second base and this is the shortstop so these are our four infielders and The first and third baseman are called the corner infielders because they're outside on the corners and the Second baseman and the shortstop are in the middle. So they are called the middle infielders There are no rules that any players on defense other than the pitcher has to stand on a specific spot But usually the infielders will stand Around these general areas so they can cover as much ground as possible Our final three players are the outfielders who as you may have guessed stand in the outfield Whoever named these positions didn't get too creative with their name So in left field we have the left fielder in center field We have the center fielder and finally in right field We have the right fielder these outfielders are usually pretty fast guys because they have to cover so much ground At the beginning of each game the managers for both teams and managers just what a baseball coach is called We'll write down the list of nine guys that will be playing that day in what is called the starting lineup This will include two things what position each guy will be playing and The order that the nine of them will bat in We'll get into batting more in subsequent videos But for a player to have an at bat means that he will go up to home plate Stand in the batter's box and try to hit the ball and the nine players on the team will have to go up to the plate in The same order each time when they get through all nine guys. They just start again at the top Players can switch positions at any time during the game, but they cannot switch the order in which they bat Baseball does allow substitutions But if another player bats or plays in the field in your place You cannot come back into the game after that. So you are done for the day Some leagues will have a special position called the designated hitter or the DH And this is a player who will bat instead of the pitcher, but will not play in the field So as the level of play becomes more and more difficult pitchers become very Specialized in their position and they focus so much time and attention on pitching that they generally Turn out to be very poor hitters and so the position of designated hitter was created so that they would not have to bat Some people like the DH other people hate it But within each individual game either both teams will use it or neither one will so things are even during each individual game So speaking of offensive players, where do they stand on the field? Well the batter as you probably know by now will stand at home plate in the batter's box If he succeeds in what he's trying to do the batter will become a base runner And we'll then stand on or nearby one of the bases for example We would say that this guy is on first base Now there can be up to one runner on each base at a time So if there's a runner on first second and third base at the same time We would say that the bases are loaded and this is the maximum number of base runners We could have at any one time other members of the offensive team who will be on the field are the base coaches And there will be two of them one by first base and the other by third base They're supposed to stay within these little white brackets that are painted on the field But they almost never do and all those since they stay out of the way nobody ever seems to mind These coaches are an extra set of eyes for the base runners So if a base runner is running from second to third base His base coach can be looking at the ball in right field and yell to the runner Whether he should stop at third base or keep running to home plate The final guys on the field are the umpires who are baseball's version of the referee There are usually four umpires during a game one for each base and home plate and Lower leagues like if you go to a local little league game There will probably only be a home plate umpire and one umpire in the field The final thing I wanted to throw in are two more terms that you might hear So while the batter is up the next guy in the batting order will be on deck And to be on deck just means that he is the next batter Usually this guy will be in the on deck circle swinging his bat and getting loosened up for his time at the plate The guy who will bat after the guy who is on deck is said to be in the hole So quick recap of the defensive positions the battery of the pitcher on his mound in the catcher behind home plate The four infielders the first baseman the second baseman who is to the right to second base The third baseman and the shortstop who is opposite the second baseman And the three outfielders the left fielder the center field and the right fielder So those are the baseball positions Thanks for watching