on the team; in the club

[teleostomi]

Hello everyone,

He is on the baseball team.

Can I use "in" instead of "on" here? I don't see why "on" is appropriate here. Why is "on" used here?

He is in the club.
Thanks in advance.

[Pete]

Hello everyone,

He is on the baseball team.

Can I use "in" instead of "on" here? I don't see why "on" is appropriate here. Why is "on" used here?

He is in the club.
Thanks in advance.

I don't think I can come up with a reason other than this is the way we say it, but "on the team" and "in the club" are natural and correct. The opposite pairings, (X "in the team" and X "on the club") are neither natural nor correct.

Even though various prepositions generally have meanings that help predict which to use in a particular situation, a number of idioms use different prepositions that the one you might expect. In general it doesn't seem possible to say that a preposition in one language corresponds exactly to a preposition in another language.