Baseball is a weird game, completely unlike anything else in the North American sportscape (with the exception of it’s children) and like few other sports in the world, period.

For example:

Baseball can, literally, last forever: There is no limit to the number of innings in most competitive leagues (in certain parts of Asia, there are ties, and in some international competitions there are runners that start on the bases after 11 or 12 innings, but those are exceptions). There have been baseball games that have gone 25 innings, 26 innings and then called only because of curfew, and the professional record: 33 innings. In theory, if you played an infinite amount of baseball games, you would eventually have a game played that would continue until the end of the universe.

There are, of course, other sports that can go far past their ordinarily defined bounds. Tennis, for example, has had some very, very long matches, and basketball and playoff hockey have seen games that go several overtimes, but it still happens the most in baseball.

The defense has possession of the ball: Only other bat-and-ball games, such as cricket, have a similar situation. When there is a interception or fumble recovery in football, the defense has the ball, in a way, but that is more a case of the defense becoming the offense.

It is built upon failure: Can you imagine if a NFL quarterback made only three out of every 10 passes? He’d be run out of the league, possibly with pitchforks. But in baseball, somebody who hits three out of 10 balls safely is good, and somebody who hits four out of 10 is a legend.

You can avoid the best offensive player: In football, you can try to kick it away from Devin Hester. In basketball, you can try to foul a big man. But only in baseball can you just, well, pass the biggest offensive threat entirely, by giving him an intentional walk. You can even do it with the bases loaded- it’s happened a few times, including to Nap Lajoie, Barry Bonds and (most recently) Josh Hamilton.

The field is different everywhere: While the diamond itself is the same everywhere, every ballpark has different quirks and dimensions that can affect the game. Fenway Park is completely different from Yankee Stadium, which is different from Dodger Stadium or Camden Yards. No other sport has that. Can you imagine if Soldier Field had a semi-circular end-zone and wider goal posts, while Lambeau’s northern half was only 25 yards long with an extremely narrow goal post while the southern side was normal? What if Madison Square Garden had the NCAA three-point line while Boston had the hoop a little higher up? Well, that’s basically what baseball is like: every playing field has differences.

There are, of course, other differences… can you think of any?