Sunday, April 3rd was the Pittsburgh Pirates Home Opener or Opening Day. For any of you reading who aren’t baseball fans, here is a handy dandy wiki link (I had to double-check I was using the right terminology). I grew up watching more football than baseball, but I used to play softball (not for very long though). When I was thinking about what to write for this post, I really wanted to write about the home opener, but I couldn’t come up with a creative way to write about it, and then I realized that there is SO MUCH information out there about baseball and the Pirates (and honestly that is a good thing … because there are a lot of things happening with baseball).

People go to baseball games for a variety of reasons, because they like the game (my mom [Hi Mom!]), because they like the food and being in a stadium (me) or because they’ve been dragged there by their family (my dad and sister). So for this post, I wanted to provide some information that may help people who love their family that much that they’re willing to go to put up with the game (there ARE interesting things about baseball).

Major League Baseball (MLB) is split into two leagues, the American League and the National League, which are then broken down into East, Central and West. Have I lost anyone? Not yet? Great! After regular season there is post season, which is better explained here, but is three rounds that lead to the World Series, and the World Series is a best of seven series. Now that you are all-knowing in baseball, you can definitely name the retired numbers and Hall of Famers from the Pirates, right? Okay, maybe not, but if I’ve sparked your interest, there are a number of ways that you can find out more information about (Pirates) baseball. And for those of you who stuck through this post and have no interest in baseball there are some pretty fun fiction reads too.

So are you interested in baseball now? Have you always been interested but found something new in this post? Do you go to games for a special reason? Are you tired of reading this post?  Feel free to comment below (to one or all of the questions if you feel ambitious).

Abbey is the teen librarian at the West End. She tends to read anything that someone hands her, but truly enjoys reading history and young adult novels.