The Official Rules of Baseball Illustrated

by David Nemec

  The 1884 season saw the National League shrink the number of balls needed for a walk to six, but the American Association still required seven balls. In 1886, the AA dropped to six balls, only to have the NL again demand seven. The two leagues adopted a uniform code of rules in 1887, including a reduction to five balls. Finally, in 1889, the figure was set at four, where it has remained ever since.

  In 1879, the last year that nine balls were required to walk, Charley Jones, at the time the game’s leading slugger, topped the National League with just 29 free passes, and there were only 508 walks issued throughout the loop. The league total more than doubled in 1881, when a walk came after six balls, and the figure continued to climb all during the 1880s—peaking in 1889—the first year that a batter could stroll to first base after only four called balls. That season, National League pitchers handed out 3,612 free tickets, 1,519 more than in 1888.

  The BATTER’S BOX is the area within which the batter shall stand during his time at bat.

  Cartwright et al also made no reference to batter’s boxes in their playing rules. In all forms of baseball prior to 1874, a batter had to stand with either his forward foot or his back foot on a line drawn across the center of the home-plate area. If a batter struck a pitch without having a foot on the line, the umpire simply called the resulting blow “no hit” and called the batter back to the plate. There was no other penalty.

  The 1874 season introduced a 6 x 3 foot rectangular box for the hitter to occupy, thereafter known as the “batter’s box.” The dimensions were increased to the present 6 x 4 in 1886.

  Unlike the early game, nowadays when a batter steps out of the box—causing a pitcher to pause in the middle of his delivery—the plate umpire will not call a balk. Instead, the arbiter will just signal that time is out and then resume the game as if the incident had not occurred. If in the umpire’s judgment the disruption was deliberate, he can take further action, including tossing the batter out of the game.

  Before 1957, as a pitcher was about to deliver the ball, a batter was free to step out of the box and take his chances. The absence of an equivalent to current Rule 5.10 (f) opened the door to incidents like the one in Rule 5.10 (f) that occurred in a 1952 Western International League game. It also enabled a batter to try a ruse that is now regarded as unsportsmanlike conduct and may result in the transgressor being called out. With a runner on third base a batter in earlier times could drop his bat as the pitcher went into his windup in an effort to induce a run-scoring balk.

  By the way, there is still nothing in the rule book to say that a player must have a bat in his hands as he awaits a pitch. Three is not even an edict that he has to be accompanied by a bat when he steps into the batter’s box.

  A BUNT is a batted ball not swung at, but intentionally met with the bat and tapped slowly within the infield.

  Hits that we now call bunts were originally known as “baby” hits. No one has a clue who coined the term “bunt.” It is even impossible to say for certain who laid down the first deliberate bunt. Some historians credit the gambit to Dickey Pearce, a stocky little shortstop active from the mid-1850s until 1877. A weak hitter even against underhand pitching, Pearce learned to bunt out of necessity, but whether he was the first to master the art will always be arguable.

  A CATCH is the act of a fielder in getting secure possession in his hand or glove of a ball in flight and firmly holding it; providing he does not use his cap, protector, pocket or any other part of his uniform in getting possession. It is not a catch, however, if simultaneously or immediately following his contact with the ball, he collides with a player, or with a wall, or if he falls down, and as a result of such collision or falling, drops the ball. It is not a catch if a fielder touches a fly ball which then hits a member of the offensive team or an umpire and then is caught by another defensive player. In establishing the validity of the catch, the fielder shall hold the ball long enough to prove that he has complete control of the ball and that his release of the ball is voluntary and intentional. If the fielder has made the catch and drops the ball while in the act of making a throw following the catch, the ball shall be adjudged to have been caught.

  (Catch) Comment: A catch is legal if the ball is finally held by any fielder, even though juggled, or held by another fielder before it touches the ground. Runners may leave their bases the instant the first fielder touches the ball. A fielder may reach over a fence, railing, rope or other line of demarcation to make a catch. He may jump on top of a railing, or canvas that may be in foul ground. No interference should be allowed when a fielder reaches over a fence, railing, rope or into a stand to catch a ball. He does so at his own risk.

  If a fielder, attempting a catch at the edge of the dugout, is “held up” and kept from an apparent fall by a player or players of either team and the catch is made, it shall be allowed.

  A runner was not permitted to tag up and try to advance on a caught fly ball until 1859. Until then, an “air” ball was dead as soon as it was caught and remained dead until it was back in the pitcher’s hands. But the 1859 amendment merely said that such balls were no longer dead. Four years later, the rule put into words that a baserunner had the right to advance after returning to his original base as soon as the ball had been “settled into the hands of a fielder.”

  For many years the phrase “settled into the hands of a fielder” spelled trouble, especially for some umpires who took it to mean that a ball had to be firmly secured before a runner was free to tag up and advance. A number of outfielders became deft at juggling routine fly balls in order to hold a runner to his base while they jogged toward the infield until they were close enough to throw the runner out if he attempted to advance a base. Tommy McCarthy was supposedly a whiz at this trick when he patrolled the outfield with Hugh Duffy for the great Boston Beaneaters teams of the 1890s. But if McCarthy and other gardeners of his era were really so crafty, why was this apparent loophole not sealed up while they were still active (McCarthy, for one, finished in 1896)? In 1897, a rule at long last was created to thwart McCarthy et al, but only on balls that an umpire judged were juggled intentionally . . . not always easy to determine. In actuality, it was only in 1920 that the rule was finally altered to explicitly allow a runner to advance on a fly ball as soon as it touched a fielder, regardless of whether or not it was held secure. Meanwhile, two years earlier, a batting title was decided, owing largely to two umpires who were unfamiliar with the 1897 rule. But more about that in a moment.

  Since the adoption of the 1920 amendment, on many occasions runners have advanced two and sometimes even three bases on a fly when an outfielder has juggled the ball or else fallen down or crashed into a wall after making a catch. At times a sacrifice fly has scored more than one run even though no errors or mishaps occurred on the play. Rocky Colavito, reputed to have one of the strongest arms in history, was once so victimized. Playing right field for Cleveland in the second game of a doubleheader with the Chicago White Sox on August 30, 1959, Colavito decided to showcase his arm in the top of the second inning on Barry Latman’s fly ball to deep right with John Romano on third and Al Smith on second. Knowing that Romano, a slow runner, would tag at third and try to score, Colavito put his all into a heave homeward and to his embarrassment saw the speedy Smith tally right behind Romano when his throw rainbowed and seemed to hang suspended in the air forever before it finally descended after both White Sox runners had crossed the plate.

  As for the controversial batting title, it emanated from a game at Cincinnati on April 29, 1918, involving the Reds and the Cardinals. In The Complete Book of Forfeited and Successfully Protested Major League Games, Nemec and Miklich profile the key event, a deep fly ball to Reds center fielder Edd Roush in the top of the eighth inning of a 3–3 game with one out and Bert Niehoff of the Cards on third base. Niehoff tagged up at third, expecting to score the go-ahead run after Roush made the catch.

  But the Cincinnati Enquirer reported that “just as [Roush] reached the ball he stumbled a
nd fell to the ground. The sphere bounced out of his glove as he fell, but Edd twisted around and caught it in one hand as he hit the sward.”

  Center fielder Edd Roush cost himself the 1918 National League batting crown when he caught a fly ball. Had he dropped it instead, as events played out for the remainder of the season he would have won the title.

  Niehoff had left third base as soon as Roush touched the ball, and crossed the plate standing up. But Roush rose and threw the ball to second baseman Lee Magee, who fired it to third “where Heinie Groh was hollering for the ball. Groh tagged the bag and then appealed to umpire-in-chief [Hank] O’Day, who ruled that Neihoff had left third before the catch was completed and was thereupon the third out rather than the go-ahead run. The Enquirer said, “Hank’s decision on this play was a most unusual one, but eminently correct under the rules.” The St. Louis Post-Dispatch was not so sure, especially after Cards skipper Jack Hendricks announced he was playing the game under protest when he failed to convince O’Day’s partner, [Bill] Byron, that Neihoff had every right to vacate third the instant the ball first touched Roush’s glove. It concluded: “It was a peculiar tangle, one that is now up to President [John] Tener to decide which is right, Manager Hendricks or Umpire Hank O’Day,” upon learning that Hendricks had made good on his threat and filed a formal protest immediately after the Reds tallied a run with two out in the bottom of the ninth off Cards starter Lee Meadows to win, 4–3.

  On Sunday, May 12, Tener notified Cardinals president Branch Rickey that Hendricks’s protest had been allowed and the game of April 29 would have to be replayed in its entirety. Tener’s decision was based principally on O’Day’s frank admission that Neihoff had waited until the ball first touched Roush’s glove, but O’Day continued, wrongly, to maintain that “he should have remained on the sack until Roush entirely completed the catch.”

  Plate umpire O’Day’s ignorance of the 1897 rule that favored the runner—even when a ball was not blatantly juggled intentionally (compounded by base umpire Byron’s ignorance of it as well)—is appalling coming from one umpire with over more than two decades of major-league service and another who was a future Hall of Famer. As for Roush, writer/researcher Tom Ruane discovered that his protested catch and assist on the inning-ending double play in essence cost him the NL batting title. He went 2-for-3 in the disallowed game. When it was replayed as the second game of a doubleheader on August 11, he got only one hit in four at-bats. Had the protested game not been thrown out, Roush would have finished with a .336 BA, one point ahead of the actual crown wearer, Brooklyn’s Zack Wheat, and five points ahead of Wheat if another protested game in 1918 (in which Wheat went 0-for-5) had not also been thrown out.

  A considerably more famous debatable catch occurred seven years later in a World Series game. The rules as to what constitutes a legal catch make it clear that if an outfielder sees that a batted ball is headed for home run territory and catches it after jumping into the stands, it will still be a home run. If, however, he falls into the stands when jumping to make a catch, it will count as an out provided he catches and holds onto the ball. Any runners who are on base at the time will be allowed to advance one base.

  The umpire can only make an educated guess sometimes whether an outfielder who disappears into the crowd in pursuit of a ball actually caught it. Probably the most classic example of an arbiter who was put in this unenviable spot came on October 10, 1925, during Game Three of the World Series between the Washington Senators and Pittsburgh Pirates, played at Washington’s Griffith Stadium—where temporary bleachers had been installed in right-center field to provide added seating. In the top of the eighth, with two out and the Senators ahead, 4–3, Pittsburgh catcher Earl Smith laced a long drive toward the temporary seats off Senators reliever Firpo Marberry. Washington right fielder Sam Rice (who had been moved from center to right earlier in the game) raced back for it, jumped to his limit, and toppled into the seats. For some 15 seconds Rice was lost to view, but at last he emerged from the crowd, holding the ball triumphantly over his head. Umpire Cy Rigler ruled it a catch, and thus began a furious argument. Eventually even Pittsburgh owner Barney Dreyfuss bowled through the crowd of players on the field to make his voice heard in the protest. Commissioner Judge Kenesaw Mountin Landis, in attendance, was at last persuaded to confer with Rice, hoping for clear directions, but Rice would only say, “The umpire said I caught it.”

  In the end Rigler’s ruling stood for the lack of any contradictory evidence, and the Pirates lost the game, 4–3. Ironically, the game had earlier featured a sixth-inning home run by Washington’s Goose Goslin that bounced into the temporary stands. Rice lived nearly fifty more years without ever saying anything more definite about his play on Smith’s long drive than he had offered on October 10, 1924. It seemed that his epitaph would be: “The umpire said he caught it.” When Rice passed away, however, it emerged that he had left behind a letter to be opened upon his death. The letter averred that he had made the catch but provided no explanation for why he had refused to settle the issue while he was still alive.

  A DOUBLEHEADER is two regularly scheduled or rescheduled games, played in immediate succession.

  On September 9, 1876, the Hartford Blues and Cincinnati Red Stockings played two games against each other in the same day, the first such occurrence in National League history. But the pair of games was not a doubleheader in the strict sense.The first contest took place in the morning and then, after a dinner break, a second game was played in the afternoon. The first true major league doubleheader, wherein two games were played in immediate succession, came on September 25, 1882, when the Providence Grays split a pair at Worcester just four days before the Massachusetts club played its final game as a member of the National League. Worcester’s 4–3 win over Charley Radbourn in the first game of the September 25 twin bill was the last victory by a team representing that city in a major league.

  Technically, purists insist the first doubleheader was a morning-afternoon affair that occurred at Boston on July 4, 1873, between the pennant-winning Red Stockings and the Elizabeth Resolutes, the weakest entry in the National Association that season. Amazingly, the New Jersey team—which left the loop a month later with a horrific 2–20 record—won the morning contest, 11–2, over Al Spalding, universally regarded as the top pitcher in the 1871–75 NA era.

  As is still true in most minor leagues, the second game of a doubleheader was often scheduled for only seven innings in both major leagues prior to World War I. Much of the reason for the abbreviated second contest was because games in those days often did not start until mid-afternoon, making it a constant challenge to end before darkness. None of the parks as yet had lights, nor had Daylight Savings Time yet been imposed in the summer months. It need be mentioned that a number of seven-inning no-hitters that once were counted as complete-game no-nos are no longer listed among no-hit games because they went less than nine innings.

  A FORCE PLAY is a play in which a runner legally loses his right to occupy a base by reason of the batter becoming a runner.

  Even veteran umpires can be momentarily stymied as to whether a play is a force play. One such moment occurred in a June 28, 1998, interleague clash between the Mets and Yankees at Shea Stadium. With the game tied, 1–1, in the bottom of the ninth with one out, Carlos Baerga was on third and Brian McRae on first for the Mets. Baerga tagged up when pinch-hitter Luis Lopez skied a fly ball to Paul O’Neill in deep right. Recognizing that he had no chance to get the winning run at the plate, O’Neill simply lobbed the ball toward the infield after making the catch. But shortstop Derek Jeter noticed that McRae was almost standing on second base and winged the ball to Tino Martinez at first to double up McRae. The umpires then had to confer before ruling that Baerga’s winning run counted because, in their estimation, he crossed the plate before Jeter’s throw reached Martinez and McRae had not been retired on a force play. At the time there was no rule allowing video replay to confirm their decision.

  If
umpires are occasionally confused about this rule, players are even less informed on its complications. On June 10, 2010, in a night game at Minnesota’s Target Field between the Twins and Kansas City Royals, the home team had Denard Span on second and Nick Punto on third with one out in the bottom of the third inning when Joe Mauer hit a shot to deep center. Punto properly tagged up at third and started for home when Royals center fielder Mitch Maier caught the ball at the base of the fence. But Span, thinking the ball would hit the fence, took off at full tilt and was nearly at third when Punto glanced back and saw Maier make the catch. Punto yelled at Span to get back to second and then slowed to a jog upon realizing it was too late and that Span would be doubled off second for the third out. When Span was indeed doubled off, Punto was still a few yards short of the plate. Few in the park, least of all Punto, knew that he would have scored a run that counted had he crossed the plate before Span was retired. Even many sportswriters in attendance had to look up the rule later on after Kansas City won the game in 10 innings, 9–8.

  Punto is somewhat unfairly singled out here; his mistake is a common one and often goes undetected by fellow players, sportswriters, managers, and broadcasters alike.

  A FOUL BALL is a batted ball that settles on foul territory between home and first base, or between home and third base, or that bounds past first or third base on or over foul territory, or that first falls on foul territory beyond first or third base, or that, while on or over foul territory, touches the person of an umpire or player, or any object foreign to the natural ground.

  A foul fly shall be judged according to the relative position of the ball and the foul line, including the foul pole, and not as to whether the infielder is on foul or fair territory at the time he touches the ball.