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As a young man, you may be interested in trying out some new sports. There are so many different opportunities depending on what your established skills are or if you want to branch into something new. You also may be an athlete but are looking for a sport to engage in during your off-season.
Baseball
Baseball is a spring sport and is not considered full contact. A baseball field consists of the infield and outfield and is all centered around the pitcher’s mound. Around the mound is a diamond made of first base, second base, third base, and the home plate. Teams take turns being on the field. When one team is on the field, the other team is attempting to hit the ball that a pitcher throws over home plate with a baseball bat. The hitter’s goal is to get on base, traveling through all three of them to cross home plate. There are three options when a player is up at bat:
- They hit the ball and run through as many bases as possible until the other team fields the ball and tries to get them out by tagging them with the ball.
- The pitcher throws four unhittable pitches called „balls“ and the hitter walks onto a base.
- The pitcher throws 3 strikes where the hitter swings and does not hit the ball or the ball is considered hittable and the hitter does not swing.
The hitter, once on base, can steal bases. There are nine innings of baseball where each inning consists of each team playing the field once and hitting once. The innings end when the team hitting has three outs where the player either strikes out at home plate or was caught on the field.
Football
Football is an extremely popular sport within the United States, not to be confused with soccer which is known as football in the rest of the world. US football is typically an outdoor sport played on a field. The players wear padding and helmets because this is a full-contact sport. The purpose is to move the ball down the field and score a goal. The catch is that each team trades off as playing offense and defense. When a team is playing offense they have four downs to move the ball ten yards. If they manage to do that, the downs start back at one. Something that makes football unique is the fact that they have goal posts that during something called a field goal, a kicker can score points by kicking the football between the posts.
Swimming
Swimmers are known to be in fantastic shape. This sport is a great option for young men who are looking for a low-impact and non-contact sport. In swimming, you compete in races where you swim a certain distance against other swimmers using different strokes. The different strokes or styles are front stroke, backstroke, breaststroke, and butterfly stroke. Front stroke and backstroke have similar kicking methods which is a flutter kick. This is when the legs alternate kicking up and down with the feet outstretched. The arms are similar as well where they constantly alternate pulling the body forward or backward depending on the stroke. The main difference between the stroke is whether or not the swimmer is on their stomach moving forward or on the back moving backward. Breaststroke is considered the most popular swimming stroke and is quite unique. The arms during the breaststroke are symmetrical when pulling the body forward using an arc motion. The feet use a whip kick to propel the swimmer through the water. The butterfly stroke is considered the most physically exhausting stroke because of the energy necessary to complete it. It is called a butterfly stroke because the swimmer propels their body out of the water with their arms outstretched like a butterfly. The swimmer’s feet utilize a dolphin kick where their legs stay together and move up and down rapidly to move through the water.