1848 Knickerbocker Rules

The Knickerbockers first published their Rules in 1848 (By-laws and Rules of the Knickerbocker Base Ball Club. New York: W. H. B. Smith Book and Fancy Job Printer) They were very largely unchanged from 1845, but with one signal difference, reported by Peverelly:

“The rule was adopted, that the player running to the first base was out, if the ball was held by an adversary on that base before the runner reached it. The previous rule applied to all the bases.”

Under the original 1845 rules, an out occurred if the ball was thrown to any base a runner was attempting to reach, whether he was “forced” by a runner behind him or not; now the automatic out only applied at first, as it does today. The modern force-out at other bases still lay in the future.

Oddly, the 1848 edition omitted the language “it being understood, however, that in no instance is a ball to be thrown at him.”