What’s unique about baseball that doesn’t apply to most or any other sports?

You can’t default to your best player in a time of need. Bottom 9 down by one and you got 7, 8, 9 coming up? Deal with it. You can’t give your best scorer the ball or find your elite wide out to get you the win.

It’s the most complete team sport.

Teams don't have the same number of players on the field.

Baseball is a team sport on a macro level but an individual sport on a micro level. Not sure how to better explain it but there's very little you can do on the field to directly improve another players chance at success.

"In baseball, you can't sit on a lead and run a few plays into the line and just kill the clock. You've got to throw the ball over the damn plate and give the other man his chance. That's why baseball is the greatest game of them all."

Every stadium has a unique size and shape

Both teams score in the same place

As a European that only recently started watching baseball (and still trying to figure things out..), what immediately comes to my mind is how each player's offensive performance is not affected by the performance of his teammates.

You’re alone on offense. Every player has to get up and bat with no help from his team. You can’t pass to someone else for an assist, or have someone block for you. it’s just you against the pitcher.

The average age of a Rookie is much older. IIRC, the NBA, NFL and NHL are around 19-20, whereas the MLB is around 25

No time limit. Can't weasel your way out and chew clock, gotta get 27 outs.

Belts

There’s just something so unique about baseball. Hockey/basketball/football (soccer) is up and down the ice/court/pitch with a clock. Baseball feels like a turn-based strategy game. And also it’s a team game, but at the same time it’s an individual game (hitter vs. pitcher + fielders). I can’t put into words why it is fun to watch.

No turnovers during play.

Things are in 3’s

The field is irregular and each field has its own ground rules.

I know cricket ovals are also not necessarily identical.

90% of the game is trying to throw a ball into a box with dimensions that exist entirely in the umpire's mind.

One major factor is that you are always playing the long game. No single game stands on its own.

By that I mean, the pitching decision you make Monday impacts what you can do Tuesday. If you're in game 1 of a 3 game series, getting the opposing starting pitcher knocked out early helps you in the later games as this means taxing their bullpen. You will often start to think of individual games in terms of how winnable each one is, and will alter your approach moment to moment on that factor.

You will rarely use the same catcher in both games of a double header. You may also leverage the DH role in ways as to grant individual players rest.

The best equivalent you see with this now is the NBA where load management has become something of a contraversial topic.

You can do everything perfectly in baseball and still fail.

The amount of points you can score is dependent on how well the people before you performed.

Baseball players are generally more superstitious than other athletes in other sports. They have superstitions about everything, from what they eat to how they tie their shoes. Wade Boggs used to eat chicken every night for dinner for his entire career because he went 4-4 one night after a chicken dinner. When he had a multiple hit game when his girlfriend didn't wear underwear to the ballpark one night, he instructed her not to wear underwear on game day. Nomar Garciaparra had an elaborate routine for walking up to the plate and then between for adjusting his gloves between pitches. Ichiro wouldn't let anyone touch his bats -- even the equipment manager. The list goes on and on. Everyone has routines, rituals and mannerisms that they have to do before during and after games. And you ask why, and they say because it works. I think this is because in baseball, how you perform is often separate from your results. You can make good contact and make an out, and then make bad contact and get a hit. And then, unlike other sports, you have time to sit and obsess about success and failure.

Baseball best reflects the human struggle. Failure is the predominant feature of the game. You wait and wait for something to happen. When it does happen it is most likely to happen to someone else. An entire game can pass on defense and you may not be involved at all. The only way to insure when something does happen to you that your response is appropriate is to practice it over and over again in a context that is meaningless except for in anticipation for that moment. There is a litany of these, but probably best expressed in that The very best fail vastly more often than they succeed.

The best way to guarantee scoring is to have the object you score with leave the playing field

Unlike Football Basketball Hockey and Soccer it looks backwards if viewed in a mirror.

Managers wearing uniforms

I personally love that baseball does not have uniform playing fields. The walls, distances, etc., can be different from park to park. You just don't see that in football, soccer, hockey, basketball, etc.

The biggest difference is, there's a game tomorrow. And another the next day and another the day after that. The frequency of games has major effects on the strategy of the game and the management of the season.

Maybe this is true for other sports, but baseball is a lot more "enchanted" for lack of a better word. It is a sport that cares much more about its history and its "mythos". Participation is filled with rituals and superstitions from not walking on the foul line to rally caps to whatever you grew up doing on deuces. Tons of slang and unique culture of chatter. I know its not about the sport directly but I'm always amazed at how robust baseball culture is compared other sports I played/follow.

The sheer volume of data. Baseball plays double the games the closest major sport does. This distinct volume leads to the higher presence of statistical anomaly year over year. Something that has a 1 in 1000 chance of happening has a better chance of happening in baseball than it does in football, soccer, hockey, basketball, nascar, F1, etc.

The defense being in possession of the ball is huge, what other sport is that in?

At any given moment of a baseball game, only two people are actually playing, and the rest are watching

The defense controls the ball. In (almost?) every other sport, the offense controls the ball.

Kinda the same, but different: the offense never touches the ball. Also, scoring is done away from the ball.

i always thought it interesting that in any other major sport (football, basketball, soccer, hockey) someone with zero knowledge could pick up context clues in a conversation for a vague idea of what was happening. “The receiver caught the ball for 10 yards”, “The point guard dribbled & shot a 3 pointer”, “The forward scored a goal”, etc.

but baseball is so idiosyncratic that if you don’t have prior experience with the game, a conversation would sound like complete & utter gibberish. “Strike one!” what’s a strike? “A grounder to shortstop turns into a double play to end the inning” excuse me?

Baseball manager seems to be one of the few disciplines where a rager can find success in life. Stand up comedy being one of the few other examples.

It also seems really difficult to get by on athletic talent alone. Most everyone has to work hard at their craft.

When a player is subbed out, he can’t go back into the game.

No other sport has as long as a season.

Players change gear on the field if they get on base.

The manager/coach can just walk onto the field to talk to the pitcher (with some limits)

No penalty plays like free throws or free kicks or shootouts in baseball. You either play ball or somehow get ejected. I think this is why some people hate the ghost runner - it feels borderline like a penalty kick or something.

There's may more individual, unique matchups. Each starting pitcher x9, then each relief. You have to plan how to attack each one and then what to do for bases empty, loaded, man on, etc. Overall, I contend each game has a lot more unique strategy that needs planning each game or series, especially in the playoffs.

Everything performance-related you do on the field is easily measured and has a stat, since you do discrete things more or less the same way every time. The path along the bases is the same every time, the distance to the mound is the same every time, the position of the plate in relation to the field is the same every time, etc. etc.

In other words, you're not great at something if it doesn't show up in a stat. Even if it's lack of errors as a defender.

Baseball I believe is the only sport that doesn't have a fully defined playing area making the venue the game is played in matter.

Baseball has a piece of game equipment universally considered an effective weapon off the playing field.

Baseball on-field officials can be morbidly obese and unable to run even short distances and keep their jobs.

One on-field baseball official is heavily armored.

Baseball fields have a special surface near the perimeter of the field to warn players they are about to collide with a wall.

Baseball has no mechanism for the defensive team to become the offensive team by taking possession.

It’s the only sport where, at an appointed time, at every game, at every stadium, everyone stands up and sings a song, about the sport…

Failing 70% of the time is considered good

Bring back the Connie Mack look, I say.

The order in which things happen matters.

Single + Single + Home Run = 3 runs.

Home Run + Single + Single = 1 run.

No game clock. They have a clock but more of a play clock or shot clock.

Baseball's clock is entirely controlled by the offense.

You have a certain number of outs per inning to play with and can send a theoretically unlimited number of batters as long as you have fewer than 3 outs given.

It's actually interesting how some that are coming up are also true of cricket. In both baseball and cricket there's a disparity in how many are on the field (11 fielders and 2 batters in cricket), the defense has possession of the ball in both, the dimensions of fields/pitches are irregular, even the oddly formal uniforms (belt and button-up for baseball, very similar for Test cricket, with the addition of woolen (or similar material) vests and sweaters for colder days).

I honestly wonder if one of the more distinctive elements unique to baseball is the obsession with having a perfect ball; many sports have one game ball. Hockey games will go through multiple pucks, but that's due to them getting launched out of play and not a player of a team deeming it unsuitable for play.

Umpires don't use a whistle.

It's the last one for me. The only sport you can fail 7/10 times & be considered successful.

&, it seems more sports are developing it, but I think baseball has the deepest farm system for minor league players.

& also, 162 games. Longest schedule of any sport 🇺🇸

A run is scored by a baseball PLAYER touching home plate safely, rather than a ball or puck going into a net or crossing a goal line or falling into a hole.

Is there another sport where the entire defense always wears hats even though there’s no rule to say they must wear hats?

It’s the only sport that has “innings”

Edit: possibly the only sport without a game timer?

Every individual player wether they pitch or hit gets time in the game where all the spotlight is on them.

It really makes it feel like the ultimate team sport.

Feels like a good place to plug the podcast Effectively wild. Around the second half of last year, they started compiling things that make baseball unique. The exceptional folk who maintain the EW wiki have a list here: https://effectivelywild.fandom.com/wiki/Baseball_exceptionalism

Hope you enjoy!

Every stadium's dimensions are different.

Each field is different. The only consistency is the infield which is shaped as a Dimond.

Basketball, Football, Soocer, the field is the same distance and shaped the same way

If your team is disrespected by an opponent, it’s completely acceptable to fire a baseball as hard as you can at the head of a member of the opposing team, in an attempt to severely injure him.

No time clock. Okay, there is the pitch clock now, but unlike other sports, there is no set amount of time to complete a game. Which means you can’t build a lead and then sit on it and run out the clock. Both teams get 27 outs.

And for a really humorous perspective, find George Carlin’s routine about the difference between baseball and football. He did it on the debut of Saturday Night Live in 1975. Almost 50 years ago and it hasn’t gotten old yet.

Easy. No time clock. It truly isn't over until its over.

There’s no running out the clock. Well, sort of anyway…

I never understood the obsession with 3/10. Don’t college 3 pt shooters shoot about that much? Don’t hockey players score on only 5-10% of shots?

There’s no game clock. No taking knees or dribbling out the clock, the game isn’t over until the last out is recorded.

Guess it’s most similar to auto racing in that regard with a set amount of outs/laps required to end it

The better team only wins less than 2/3rds of the time. A much lower percentage than almost any other major sport.

You can eat and chew stuff while playing

Technically the outfield fence could go on infinitely

The 1967 Tigers finished their season with back to back doubleheaders. That’s four games in two days. Try that any other team sport.

Only sport where you can literally design your own stadium/field dimensions to your liking. Like, wtf? 😆

The fences play a big role

It’s one of the few sports that doesn’t involve one team scoring on another team’s goal.

It’s every day

I love that managers wear the player uniform, but it's also super dumb. Though not as dumb as the manager wearing a suit like in hockey and basketball.

Football gets it right honestly, the manager should wear a team polo and athletic slacks. This is what the GM wears, but the 75-year-old manager for some reason is dressed like he's going to pinch run and swipe a base.

The man scores the run, not the ball.

Every other major sport (besides Cricket) has a linear directionality to gameplay, usually starting from the center of the playing field. They are also all a variation on the theme of putting an object into a goal. Both teams have their own goal to defend, with opposing goals at opposite end of the field of play, both of which are “live” at all times. They are timed matches, and control of the object is the responsibility of the offense. No side is entitled to a minimum number of offensive chances in the course of a game.

Baseball has a circular direction of play, always starting from the farthest corner of the field and radiating outward. The object of the offense is to let the defense have the ball as much as possible. Games are not timed, and each offensive side gets the same minimum number of opportunities (81 pitches) in the course of a game.

The field dimensions are different in each stadium?

Can’t think of any other sport where the dimensions of the field of play are different at every venue.