Statistics

As with many sports, and perhaps even more so, statistics are very important to baseball. Statistics have been kept for the Major Leagues since their creation, and presumably statistics were around even before that. General managers, baseball scouts, managers, and players alike study player statistics to help them choose various strategies to best help their team.[11]
Statistics are more important to baseball than to other sports for a variety of reasons. Primary among them is the fact that every play has only a finite (and relatively limited) number of possible outcomes, unlike sports like hockey, basketball, soccer, and to a lesser extent American football, all of which are more fluid and open. This facilitates a statistical analysis of baseball, and allows a deeper level of mathematical study than that provided by other sports.
Traditionally, statistics like batting average for batters—the number of hits divided by the number of at bats—and earned run average—approximately the number of runs given up by a pitcher per nine innings—have governed the statistical world of baseball. However, the advent of sabermetrics has brought an onslaught of new statistics that perhaps better gauge a player's performance and contributions to his team from year to year.
Some sabermetrics have entered the mainstream baseball statistic world. On-base plus slugging (OPS) is a somewhat complicated formula that some say gauges a hitter's performance better than batting average. It combines the hitter's on base percentage—hits plus walks plus hit by pitches divided by at bats plus bases on balls plus hit by pitches plus sacrifice flies—with their slugging percentage—total bases divided by at bats. Walks plus hits per inning pitched (or WHIP) gives a good representation of a pitcher's abilities; it is calculated exactly as its name suggests.
Also important are more specific statistics for particular situations. For example, a certain hitter's ability to hit left-handed pitchers might cause his manager to give him more chances to face lefties. Some hitters hit better with runners in scoring position, so an opposing manager, knowing this statistic, might elect to intentionally walk him in order to face a worse hitter.
There are some other statistics, perhaps less important than those mentioned. For hitters, these include at-bats, the number of hits and extra-base hits, and runs batted in, or RBIs. For pitchers, these include total innings pitched, strikeouts per nine innings, walks, and the pitch count.

Popularity
The majority of baseball's popularity resides in East Asia, and the Americas, although in South America its popularity is mainly limited to the northern portion of the continent. Baseball is among the most popular sports in the Dominican Republic, Puerto Rico, Japan, Cuba, Panama, Canada, Venezuela, Nicaragua, South Korea, Taiwan and the United States.
Baseball's biggest market is the United States where it is the second most popular sport.[12] This popularity has resulted in baseball being regarded as more than just a "major sport". Since the 19th Century, it has been popularly referred to as the "national pastime" and Major League Baseball has been given a unique monopoly status by the Supreme Court of the United States.[13] This popularity continues with Baseball Commissioner Bud Selig commenting that baseball is currently more popular now than it has ever been. [14]
Worldwide, baseball is estimated as being the 7th most popular sport, behind football (soccer), cricket, field hockey, tennis, volleyball and table tennis. However, on the 8th July 2005 the IOC controversially decided to drop baseball from the 2012 Olympics.[15]

Organized leagues

Baseball is played at a number of levels, by amateur and professionals, and by the young and the old. Youth programs use modified versions of adult and professional baseball rules, which may include a smaller field, easier pitching (from a coach, a tee, or a machine), less contact, base running restrictions, limitations on innings a pitcher can throw, liberal balk rules, and run limitations, among others. Since rules vary from location-to-location and among the organizations, coverage of the nuances in those rules is beyond this article.