Clipping:The expected effect of the new pitching rules; balls and strikes
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| Date | Wednesday, March 2, 1864 |
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| Text | Many think that the rule in reference to pitching will greatly promote the attractiveness of the game, by giving more scope for a display of skill by the outer-fielders. At any rate, the pitching will be slower than it has been for the past three or four seasons, and more dependence will be placed upon good fielders than upon the speed of the pitcher for success in matches. The time will come when slow, twisting balls, pitched with skill and judgment, will supersede the rifle-shooter of would-be Creightons. The fast pitching system is “played out”. Spectators have become disgusted with waiting hour after hour to see three or four innings played, the pitcher and catcher tired from over-work, the batsman annoyed and irritated from waiting for good balls, the fieldsmen idle and cross for want of something to do, and all the “vim” and spirit of the game being lost, because “we want to show ‘em what a bully swift pitcher we’ve got”. The new rule in regard to calling balls on a pitcher, too, is likely to lead to good results in every way. Hitherto, umpires have refrained from calling strikes on batsmen, who have refused to strike at good balls, because there has been nothing to offset the advantage thus given to the pitcher; there being no rule hitherto whereby the umpire could inflict a penalty on the pitcher as well as the batsman, for his unfair practices. This new rule remedies this evil, and now we shall, no doubt, see both batsmen and pitchers kept down to their legitimate work by the threat of imposing the penalties the rules now inflict upon both parties. These new rules, in this respect, practically take the most effective part of swift pitching out of the hands of pitchers; for, to tell the truth, not a solitary instance of fair pitching, that was very swift, have we seen since Creighton died. Swift pitchers have apparently regarded it as the very acme of skill in swift pitching to intimidate the batsman as much as possible, and thereby so cloud his judgment as to induce him to bat at balls he cannot hit. It is the most difficult thing to impart a bias to the ball, and pitch it in swiftly with one and the same movement, and hence to offset the worst of the twist in swift pitching, the pitchers have reverted to the custom which brought about the rule to calling balls on them. |
| Source | New York Sunday Mercury |
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| Submitted by | Richard Hershberger |
| Origin | Initial Hershberger Clippings |
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