OK all you EUs out there, the baseball post-season is upon us. Time to start the slow yet invigorating process of understanding what’s going, and why this game is so much better than cricket or rounders or any game that Donna Gee’s friends play.

First of all, home runs: one of the most definitive moments in sports. I know in European football once or twice a game (or even three times if you’re lucky) you actually get to see A GOAL. Well, a home run can happen at any moment, delivered either by a great muscle-bound hunk (more likely) or a gangly jackrabbit of a human being (less likely) who can nonetheless at any moment hit a ball over the wall. The experience gives a thrill to the crowd and an instant energy spike to the team. This represents a huge momentum swing in the game, and the more unlikely the homer hitter, the more of a swing it can be.

A home run can produce one run, two runs, three runs, or four runs (a Grand Slam -- no, not a tennis or golf tournament) depending on the amount of runners on base. Of course, the impact on the score determines the relative intensity of the charge that the homer produces.

With this much information, maybe a brave soul out there can start explaining in kind what the heck is going on on the cricket field with one guy hitting the ball in any direction and never out of the park. And why don’t those guys use gloves, or get their little sweaters dirty?

Anyway, there are eight teams in the post season, four each in the American and National leagues. Each team represents the champion of leagues that are separated by geographical region, so that there is proportional representation distributed throughout the country. Unlike in the Londonship, I mean Premiership, there are teams from more than three cities, and there are no more than two teams from any city!

Anyway, besides the three divisional champions, one more team gets in the post-season, based on having the best record overall of the rest of the teams in the two respective leagues, National and American.

The first series is a best of five and is called the Division Series. The winner of each will play a best-of-seven series in the League Champion Series. Then, finally, the two winners of the National and American league will meet in the World Series (and the reason it is called the World Series is because whatever team wins the World Series is the best baseball team in the world, without question. Champions in America are multi-ethnic and diverse so that the best collection of international athletes on a baseball team will win the World Series, and I am herein maintaining that the World Series is still aptly named.

The game has nine innings, an inning composed of a chance for each team to bat until they make three outs in the hope of manufacturing some runs over that duration. These outs can most easily be made by catching a batted ball in the air, or throwing to first base before the batter arrives there after making contact with the ball in FAIR PLAY. Now, in cricket the whole field is clearly fair so some type of adjustment in perceptions may need to be made at this juncture.

Anyway, each runner who circles the bases before three outs are made is worth a run on the scoreboard. The team with the most runs at the end of the game wins.

This the most simplified explanation that can possibly be given. Now, the batter, and pitcher (the one who throws the ball to the batter) and any of the position players can be substituted at any moment. Thus, there is actually an invisible game of chess and percentages being played at every moment under the surface of what might appear to be a boring or uneventful game viscerally.

It so happens that in the post-season all managerial decision are magnified, and will be remembered either in fame or infamy at crucial junctures in any game. So, too, can the results of the performance of the batter in the batter’s box or on the field, and goats and heroes are made simultaneously, while shifts in momentum can happen within moments of each other. The chance for redemption is strong in baseball, and the game has an uncanny way of bringing reputations down and just as suddenly and unexpectedly blowing them back up.

The bottom line is that everything a batter, pitcher or fielder does on the field right now represents a scenario and position that they dreamed of as youngsters, and captures the imagination of the entire nation of not only baseball but sport aficionados all over the world for these weeks in October. The dramas and suspense and transcendent performances (or clutch, when a player raises his level of performance as the stakes get higher) that audiences experience in watching these games will leave a permanent impression and a lifetime of inspiration. Or heartbreak.

On the field of baseball, these are the moments that try men’s souls, and tax and frazzle a manager's mind as he files through his substitution options at crucial moments and then relies on his gut instincts as he tries to produce the winning outcome for their team. Meanwhile, another sage manager in the visitor dugout (where the players assemble for the game) tries equally hard to negate that effect.

So, all EU sports fans out there, I invite you to check out America’s beautiful game. Take a break from the America bashing, and enjoy the magnificence and excitement of the aptly-named Fall Classic. Don’t worry, I won’t tell anyone.