History of baseball outside the United States

Baseball is a sport that started in the United States a long time ago. But then people started playing it in other countries too! Let's learn about the history of baseball outside of the United States.

When people started playing baseball in other countries, they didn't play it exactly like the Americans did. They made their own rules and made the game their own. They also had different names for it. For example, in Japan, they called it "yakyu".

In the 1800s, a lot of American soldiers went to other countries and took baseball with them. They taught people how to play and it became popular in places like Cuba and Japan. In Cuba, they started their own league called the "National Series" and it still exists today!

In the early 1900s, baseball became really popular in Japan. They had their own league called the "Japan Professional Baseball League" and it's still really popular today. Japan also has a team that plays in the World Baseball Classic, which is a tournament where teams from all over the world compete against each other.

In other countries, people also started playing baseball in their own unique ways. For example, in the Dominican Republic, they have a game called "vitilla" which is like baseball, but instead of hitting a ball with a bat, they hit a bottle with a stick!

Today, baseball is played all over the world and it's become a global sport. People in different countries still have their own rules and ways of playing the game, but they all share a love for baseball!