baseball Baseball is a bat-and-ball sport played between two teams of nine players each, taking turns batting and fielding. The game occurs over the course of several plays, with each play generally beginning when a player on the fielding t ...

, an ace is a starting pitcher considered the best pitcher on a team and nearly always the first pitcher in the team's

starting rotation R rabbit ears :Indicates a participant in the game who hears things perhaps too well for their own good. A player who becomes nervous or chokes when opposing players or fans yell at or razz them is said to have rabbit ears. Also, an umpire ...

. Barring injury or exceptional circumstances, an ace typically starts on Opening Day. In addition, aces are usually preferred to start crucial

playoff The playoffs, play-offs, postseason or finals of a sports league are a competition played after the regular season by the top competitors to determine the league champion or a similar accolade. Depending on the league, the playoffs may be eithe ...

games, sometimes on three days' rest. The term may be a derivation of the nickname of

Asa Brainard Asahel "Asa" Brainard (1841 – December 29, 1888), nicknamed "Count", was the ace pitcher of the original Cincinnati Red Stockings, the first fully professional baseball team, after having pitched for the Excelsior club of Brooklyn, New York. ...

(real first name: "Asahel"), a 19th-century star pitcher, who was sometimes referred to as "Ace". In the early days of baseball, the term ''ace'' was used to refer to a run. Modern baseball analysts and fans have started using the term ''ace'' to refer to the elite pitchers in the game, not necessarily to the best starting pitcher on each team. For example, the April 27, 1981, ''

Sports Illustrated ''Sports Illustrated'' (''SI'') is an American sports magazine first published in August 1954. Founded by Stuart Scheftel, it was the first magazine with circulation over one million to win the National Magazine Award for General Excellence twi ...

'' cover was captioned "The Amazing A's and Their Five Aces" to describe the

of the 1981 Oakland Athletics.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Ace (Baseball) Baseball pitching Baseball strategy