The term 'ball' is used as:

• A. All of the above.
• B. A playing implement necessary to conduct a game.
• C. A designation of a pitch that is not touched by the bat.
• D. A way of describing a pitch that is not a strike.

Answer: (A)

Ball has multiple uses in the game: it is the playing implement used to conduct the game, and it is also the term the umpire uses to describe pitches that do not count as strikes—typically when a pitch is outside the strike zone and the batter does not swing at it, or when the batter doesn’t make contact with the ball. Because these different usages all exist, the term covers all the described scenarios. Therefore, all of these are valid uses of the word “ball.”