In baseball, a position player is a player who on defense plays as an infielder, outfielder, or catcher. This is generally all players on a team except for the pitcher, who is considered separate from the position players; in the American League, there is also a designated hitter, who bats but does not play any defensive positions (and is therefore not a position player). Position players are eligible to pitch, and a manager may have a player do so in the case of a blowout during a game, or if he runs out of eligible pitchers in a game, usually occurring when the game goes into many extra innings. However, this is rare.
The term is also used in hockey, to refer to all non-goaltender players, although skater is the more common term in hockey.
Famous quotes containing the words position and/or player:
“We say that someone occupies an official position, whereas it is the official position that occupies him.”
—G.C. (Georg Christoph)
“There has been in our time a lack of reliance on language and a lack of experimentation which are frightening to anyone who sees them as symptoms. We know the phenomenon of stage-fright: it holds the player shivering, incapable of speech or action. Perhaps there is an audience-fright which the play can feel, which leaves him with these incapacities.”
—Muriel Rukeyser (1913–1980)