Clipping:The pitcher moved back to 50 feet; reducing the number of balls and strikes; eliminating the warning
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| Date | Saturday, January 1, 1881 |
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| Text | The most important change [to the rules] made is that of increasing the distance between the pitcher and batsman. For ever twenty years—in fact, from 1857 to 1880—the distance between the front-line of the pitcher's position and the home-base has been forty-five feet. This was a short distance even for the days when Creighton began to make speed a specialty in the delivery of the ball, and it ha practically become less as the speed of the delivery has been increased, until it has now reached the limit of a catcher's power to hold the thrown ball. The distance between the two positions is now fifty feet, instead of forty-five. In cricket the distance between the line of the bowler's position and that of the batsman is sixty odd feet, and yet that is considered quite short by cricket batsmen, and the swiftest bowled ball in cricket is sent in with no greater speed than is the thrown ball from the pitcher's hands in baseball. It was regarded at the League meeting that two objects would be achieved by this change, one being that the batsman would have five feet of length the more to judge the line of the ball from the pitcher's hands, and the other was that the pitcher would be enabled to throw quicker and better to second base in trying to throw out a runner, or in fielding a ball direct from the bat. The main object was to give more freedom to the batting, and this might have been the effect but for the amendment reducing the number of fair balls that the batsman is allowed to let pass him from four to three, while the number of unfair balls the pitcher is permitted to send in was not lessened in proportion, as under the rule of an equal ratio, the unfair balls should have been limited to six instead of seven. It will be seen that the present cramped position of the batsman has not been improved at all; rather otherwise, for he has now less time allowed him to choose a ball than before. He must either hit or strike at the first three balls which come to him from the pitcher, at the height he called for and over the home base, or he will be given out on strikes. It is true that this curtailment of the number of balls to choose from has been offset by a reduction of unfair balls; but the latter is not in proportion to the former, and the batsman suffers from it. Whether the five feet increase will compensate for the loss of the “fair ball” warning has yet to be tried. We think, however, that the effect will be to leave the position of the attack and defense in the game—viz., the pitching and the batting—in the same relative degree as before. New York Clipper January 1, 1881 It will be seen that the reference to the call of “fair ball” or the warning ball has been stricken out. Now the batsman must strike at the first three fair balls sent in to him, or be decided out on strikes. New York Clipper January 8, 1881 |
| Source | New York Clipper |
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| Submitted by | Richard Hershberger |
| Origin | Initial Hershberger Clippings |
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