Understand the basic objective 

In a game of baseball, two opposing teams try to score more runs than the other. A run is scored when a team's player runs (in a counter-clockwise direction) and steps on all three bases and home plate, which is also known as completing the circuit.. A game lasts nine innings unless the score is tied. In that case it continues for additional innings until one team breaks the tie by scoring another run.

Each inning is broken down into two parts: the top of the inning, and the bottom of the inning. The visiting team is given the opportunity to score runs in first section of the inning, known as the top of the inning. The home team is given the same opportunity in the latter half, or the bottom of the inning. During this opportunity to score, either team is known as the batting team. When either team is preventing the other team from scoring runs, it's called the fielding team.

Each team's opportunity to score runs in an inning are limited by outs. An out is an action by the fielding team to remove temporarily a batting team player from active play. (You'll read several examples a little later.) Three outs in an inning mark the end of a batting team's effort to score runs.