Portal:Sports
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Template:/box-header Template:/Intro Template:/box-footer Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'Module:Box-header/colours' not found. Baseball is a bat-and-ball sport played between two teams of nine players. The aim is to score runs by hitting a thrown ball with a bat and touching a series of four bases arranged at the corners of a diamond.Each section of the diamond is 90 feet long. Players on the batting team take turns hitting against the pitcher of the fielding team, which tries to stop them from scoring runs by getting hitters out in any of several ways. A player on the batting team can stop at any of the bases and later advance via a teammate's hit or other means. The teams switch between batting and fielding whenever the fielding team records three outs. One turn at bat for each team constitutes an inning and nine innings make up a professional game. The team with the most runs at the end of the game wins.Evolving from older bat-and-ball games, an early form of baseball was being played in England by the mid-eighteenth century. This game was brought by immigrants to North America, where the modern version developed. By the late nineteenth century, baseball was widely recognized as the national sport of the United States. Baseball is now popular in North America, parts of Central and South America and the Caribbean, and parts of East Asia. In the United States and Canada, professional Major League Baseball (MLB) teams are divided into the National League (NL) and American League (AL), each with three divisions: East, West, and Central. The major league champion is determined by playoffs that culminate in the World Series. Five teams make the playoffs from each league: the three regular season division winners, plus two wild card teams. Each top-level team has a farm system of one or more minor league teams. Baseball is the leading team sport in both Japan and Cuba, where the top competitions are the Nippon Professional Baseball and Cuban National Series. Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'Module:Box-header/colours' not found. Nasser Al-Attiyah driving his Ford Fiesta S2000 at the 2010 Rally Finland rallying race Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'Module:Box-header/colours' not found.  Over the course of his career, Sakic was one of the most productive forwards in the game, having twice scored 50 goals and earning at least 100 points in six different seasons. His wrist shot, considered one of the best in the NHL, was the source of much of his production as goalies around the league feared this shot. At the conclusion of the 2008–09 NHL season, he was the eighth all-time points leader in the NHL, as well as 14th in all-time goals and 11th in all-time assists. During the 2002 Winter Olympics, Sakic helped lead Team Canada to its first ice hockey gold medal in 50 years, and was voted as the tournament's most valuable player. He represented the team in six other international competitions, including the 1998 and 2006 Winter Olympics. After the 2000–01 NHL season, Sakic was named the MVP of the NHL by the hockey writers and his fellow players. He retired from the NHL on July 9, 2009, and had his jersey number retired prior to the Avalanche's 2009–10 season opener on October 1, 2009, at the Pepsi Center. He is currently an executive adviser and alternate governor of the Avalanche. On November 12, 2012, Sakic was inducted in the Hockey Hall of Fame along with Adam Oates, Pavel Bure and Mats Sundin. Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'Module:Box-header/colours' not found.  The German national team is one of the most successful in women's football. They are two-time world champions, having won the 2003 and 2007 FIFA Women's World Cup. Germany is the only nation to have won both the men's and the women's World Cup. The team has won seven of the ten UEFA Women's Championships, claiming five titles in a row. Germany has won three bronze medals at the Women's Olympic Football Tournament, finishing third in 2000, 2004 and 2008. Birgit Prinz holds the record for most appearances and is the team's all-time leading goalscorer. Prinz has also set international records; she has received the FIFA World Player of the Year award three times and is the joint overall top goalscorer at the Women's World Cup. Women's football was long met with scepticism in Germany, and official matches were banned by the DFB until 1970. But the women's national team has grown in popularity since winning the World Cup in 2003, when it was also chosen as Germany's Sports Team of the Year. Silvia Neid has been the team's head coach since 2005, succeeding Tina Theune after nine years as her assistant. As of December 2012, Germany is ranked No. 2 in the FIFA Women's World Rankings, behind only the United States. Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'Module:Box-header/colours' not found.  Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'Module:Box-header/colours' not found. 
Template:/box-header Template:/Selected anniversaries/April Template:/box-footer Template:/box-header  Template:/box-footer Template:/box-header '''<''''noinclude''''></noinclude> ' Template:/box-footer Template:/box-header
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