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coxfan
02-03-2013, 07:58 AM
I'm sure I'm not the only history buff around, so I'm starting this thread for early historical changes (up to about 1940) that impacted sports. That's different from the "changes that were resisted" thread which is mainly stuff in my lifetime that I or other members witnessed.

The "dribble" in basketball began as a sort of circumvention of the rules. Dr. Naismith's first basketball rules, when he invented the game, required the player holding the ball to stay in place until he passed or shot. But players soon found that if they were too closely guarded to pass or shoot, they could roll or bounce the ball, or throw it over their head, to briefly relinquish control so they could get it back legally. They quickly found that they could achieve this effect by bouncing it continually, thus keeping better control without violating Dr. Naismith's rule since they weren't holding the ball. Soon this "dribbling" was addressed and regulated in the rules.

coxfan
02-05-2013, 08:46 AM
The word "pitch" comes from early baseball, where the ball had to be "pitched, not thrown, for the bat" per the 1845 rules. That meant pitching the ball like pitching hay or pitching horseshoes: underhand and slow. It took years for overhand pitching to be fully legalized, and that despite strong objections from influential conservatives who thought emphasizing "trick" pitching would ruin the game.

But the word "pitch" remains in baseball even though it no longer fits the more general English-language definition of "pitch."

coxfan
02-18-2013, 10:34 AM
When professional baseball first organized itself in 1871, it was in the form of a single organization: The National Association of Professional Baseball Players. Any club claiming to be professional could join upon payment of modest dues. As a result, clubs varied enormously in strength, with some being little more than semi-pro groups who had no financial backers. This led to a huge disparity in strength: One club would go 71-8; while another was going 2-46 while sharing in the gate receipts of the stronger clubs!

There were other problems: Fan rowdiness and gamblers led to game-fixing, and drove away families and middle-class fans. Clubs stole players under contract to others, and protected them from lawsuits. Clubs sometimes cancelled road trips if they thought they'd lose money.The player-controlled Association did nothing about these problems.

The National League was formed in 1876 to address all these problems. Clubs had to have strong financial backing to join the NL, and were assigned exclusive urban territories. Owners and the NL President took administrative control from the players, and clubs and players were expelled for abuses. (The NYC club was thrown out of the NL for cancelling road trips, I believe).
Steps were taken to discourage rowdy fans, such as increasing admission fees and banning alcohol.

With the concept of a Major League" thus established by the NL, baseball took on a broader fan appeal that took it out of its "low-class" social status. The exclusivity of the NL led to the creation of minor leagues. Later, other major leagues were tried, but all failed until the creation of the AL in 1901.

Through all this, the Boston club ( now Atlanta Braves) survived without interruption fromn 1871 until now. The Chicago club (today's Cubs) also survived from 1871, except for a two-year lapse after the Chicago fire.

Mark17
02-22-2013, 10:31 PM
In baseball there have been so many changes, from the number of balls it took for a walk, to the way foul balls were/weren't considered strikes, and the use of bigger and bigger gloves through the years, and so on.

What I find really amazing is that the 90 foot distance between bases has been constant, and it worked back in the dead ball era as well as today. You'd think, with the faster and smoother infields, livelier balls, bigger single-hinged gloves, that the defense would have the advantage. But a slow-roller, or a ball hit in the hole, is still a bang-bang play at first.

That to me is the single most surprising thing that HASN'T changed.

Roady
02-25-2013, 03:04 AM
In 1887 MLB counted walks as hits. The result was skyrocketing batting averages, including some near .500. Tip O'neal batted .485 that season, which would still be a major league record if recognized. The experiment was abandoned the following season.

Roady
02-25-2013, 03:07 AM
As a follow up : In 2000, Major League Baseball reversed its decision, ruling that the statistics which were recognized in each year's official records should stand, even in cases where they were later proven incorrect.

Gee wonder why they made that rule?

coxfan
02-25-2013, 08:44 AM
Roady, I'm not familiar with the 2000 ruling. Could you give more info? Commissioner Kuhn years ago suggested there should be a "statute of limitations" on correcting old stats when new research proved them wrong.

As a history buff, I find the idea of a "statute of limitations" on any new historical finding to be absurd. History is a science, in which new discoveries and interpretations supersede old ones just as in any science.

The one-year rule counting walks as hits essentially made the BA's the same as modern OBP's, depending on how hit batsmen and sac flies were treated. Baseball originally had no called balls or strikes. When balls started to be called, it originally required nine balls for a walk! That was reduced to four by changing the number slowly, one at a time, through successive rule changes over several years.

Roady
02-25-2013, 10:14 AM
Roady, I'm not familiar with the 2000 ruling. Could you give more info? Commissioner Kuhn years ago suggested there should be a "statute of limitations" on correcting old stats when new research proved them wrong.

As a history buff, I find the idea of a "statute of limitations" on any new historical finding to be absurd. History is a science, in which new discoveries and interpretations supersede old ones just as in any science.

The one-year rule counting walks as hits essentially made the BA's the same as modern OBP's, depending on how hit batsmen and sac flies were treated. Baseball originally had no called balls or strikes. When balls started to be called, it originally required nine balls for a walk! That was reduced to four by changing the number slowly, one at a time, through successive rule changes over several years.
Just a quick search only turned up a Wikipedia article which states.
"
History

In 1887 (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1887_in_baseball), Major League Baseball (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Major_League_Baseball) counted bases on balls (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Base_on_balls) (walks) as hits. The result was skyrocketing batting averages (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Batting_average), including some near .500; Tip O'Neill (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tip_O%27Neill_%28baseball_player%29) of the St. Louis Browns (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/St._Louis_Cardinals) batted .485 that season, which would still be a major league record if recognized. The experiment was abandoned the following season.
There is some controversy regarding how the records of 1887 should be interpreted. The number of legitimate walks and at-bats are known for all players that year, so computing averages using the same method as in other years is straightforward. In 1968, Major League Baseball formed a Special Baseball Records Committee to resolve this (and other) issues. The Committee ruled that walks in 1887 should not be counted as hits. In 2000, Major League Baseball reversed its decision, ruling that the statistics which were recognized in each year's official records should stand, even in cases where they were later proven incorrect. Most current sources list O'Neill's 1887 average as .435, as calculated by omitting his walks. He would retain his American Association (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Association_%2819th_century%29) batting championship. However, the variance between methods results in differing recognition for the 1887 National League (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_League) batting champion. Cap Anson (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cap_Anson) would be recognized, with his .421 average, if walks are included, but Sam Thompson (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sam_Thompson) would be the champion at .372 if they are not."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hit_%28baseball%29


If you are like me I like a better source than Wikipedia so I will look again when I get some more time today.

Roady
02-25-2013, 11:32 PM
Sorry I haven't been able to look up anything else on it yet. I did a quick search but didn't find anything else.
I will try again when I have more time.

coxfan
02-26-2013, 10:06 AM
Thanks, Roady. Yes, I find Wikipedia useful but only as a starting point, as info is often incomplete and of variable reliability. It makes a difference whether they're talking about records in the narrow sense (the most and the least) or the broader sense of a full record of all players and games. The broader sense would take it into Commissioner Kuhns' desire for a "Statute of limitations" for any corrected stats for any player.

And it also matters whether they're talking only about the "modern" era (post-1900) when basic rules had much less change than pre-1900. Then we have the recent arguments about whether PED-influenced records should be changed or non-recognized. ( They shouldn't be changed, in my view.)

And what about Commissioner Frick's ruling that Ruth's 60-HR season had to stand as a separate 154-game record, leaving open the question of many other records (pitching, batting, fielding, and base-running) that were affected by the change to 162 games, but not mentioned by Frick? Commissioner Vincent did right to overrule Frick three decades later.

Roady
02-26-2013, 12:04 PM
I am still looking when I have time but it is slow going.

Roady
02-26-2013, 12:34 PM
Baseball Almanac at http://www.baseball-almanac.com/hitting/hibavg2.shtml
states ....
"Also, in 1887, when a player received a base on balls (walk) he was also awarded a hit in his official statistics. The rules of the day and Major League Baseball recognize the statistics as they were recorded and Baseball Almanac has also complied with the new direction."
They have him ranked first for single season batting average.

coxfan
02-27-2013, 08:29 AM
Thanks, Roady, for your help!

Roady
02-27-2013, 03:42 PM
Thanks, Roady, for your help!
You're welcome.

coxfan
03-04-2013, 08:32 AM
Today's rule about tagging out a runner comes from an early rule that allowed a runner to be put out by hitting him with a thrown ball between bases! Early variants of baseball allowed this practice, called "soaking" when homemade balls were usually softer than today's balls. But "soaked" runners weren't always happy with the bruises they got, so soaking was replaced very early when the modern rule that the fielder has to be holding the ball.

The effect was to allow harder balls; another step toward modern baseball.

coxfan
05-20-2013, 08:46 AM
I just bought a modern reprint of Henry Chadwick's 1868 book on baseball. It was the first book devoted totally to baseball.

In it, Chadwick talks of his battle to eliminate the rule that a batter was out if his hit was caught either on the fly or on "first bound" (ie first bounce). There were no fielding gloves back then, and so the "first bound" rule was popular to protect bare hands.

Chadwick was among those who thought it was more "manly" to catch balls on the fly (without a glove!), so he adopted a tricky tactic. He said he argued both sides of the issue in different articles, thereby creating two parties where there had been only one. Then he got the National Association to experiment with eliminating the "first bound" catch, and the idea caught on.

But his victory was only partial, as in 1868 the "fly catch" rule applied only to fair balls. The "first bound" catch was still an out on foul balls and uncaught third strikes.

coxfan
05-30-2013, 09:23 AM
The Federal League was a third major league that existed only two years: in 1914 and 1915. But though it folded, it left a profound impact on modern baseball through the following:

1) Wrigley Field was built for the Chicago Federal League club, and became the Cubs' home after the Feds folded.

2) Babe Ruth was sold to the Red Sox, because his minor-league club in Baltimore was being clobbered at the gate by their Federal League competition that played literally across the street. With attendance for the little club dropping as low as 150 even with Ruth playing, Ruth was shopped around. The Red Sox bought his rights sooner than he otherwise have made the majors.

3) Baseball's first Commissioner, Kenesaw Mountain Landis, came to the MLB owners' attention when the Federal League sued the Majors under anti-trust statutes. Landis happened to be the judge who got the suit, which was a bad mistake by the Feds who filed it in his jurisdiction. They didn't realize that Landis was a baseball fan who feared that the suit would kill the Reserve Clause that bound players to their clubs.

Landis was known for arbitrary rulings that were often reversed. There's little doubt that he deliberately delayed the trial to force the cash-strapped Federal League to reach a "settlement" that killed their league and left the Reserve Clause safe for a while. The AL and NL were so impressed by Landis that he was later tabbed to Chair the revamped three-man Commission. It became a one-man job when Landis demanded just broad powers that they dropped the idea of a three-man commission to let him reign alone.

4) Despite the setback with Landis, elements of the defunct Federal League got to the US Supreme Court, which ruled that baseball is exempt from Anti-Trust statutes (A strange ruling, since other sports weren't exempted.) The anti-Trust ruling has influenced many later MLB actions, through fear that the exemption would be taken by Congress.

coxfan
06-11-2013, 09:37 AM
Cricket is today a strange game to Americans, but it once was a major sport in the US. In the late 1850's, there were three bat-and-ball sports that were organized in the US:

1) Cricket had clubs all over the US, using British rules that had been standardized sine the mid-1700's.

2) A "Massachusetts game" variation of baseball was played in New England. It differed from today's baseball in such basics as shape of the infield, outs/inning, and other things. Scores in the Massachusetts tended to be very high (50 runs or more per team).

3) The "New York game" was still mainly a NYC game by 1857. Like today's game, it had a symmetrical diamond infield, three outs/inning, and foul balls ; though it differed otherwise from the modern game.

All three formed national associations in the US. But by the late 1860's, the New York game had spread all over the US and was becoming modern baseball. It drove the Massachusetts game into extinction. Cricket nearly disappeared from the US but remains the "national game" of Britain and the Commonwealth.

Ironically, an attempt to introduce baseball into England was ridiculed by the British, who called it a child's game that wasn't as "scientific" as cricket. Neither country has shown any enthusiasm for the other's game.

But American cricket influenced the development of baseball. Americans in the 1840's formed baseball clubs (like today's astronomy or chess clubs) that evolved into modern baseball organizations. (Professional players still use the word "clubs", a term that's recently spreading into other sports.) The idea of forming these clubs came from cricket clubs dating back at least to 1750 in Britain. The Knickerbocker baseball club in 1845 mimicked the cricket tradition, dating to the late 1700's, of having a prominent club publish standardized rules. That was a crucial step in creating organized baseball.

Cricket also led the way in having professionals, some of whom helped to promote the idea of baseball professionals when it was still controversial.

coxfan
07-21-2013, 11:27 AM
The name "shortstop" is a strange term for a position, and that's because it was once a strange position. An 1864 diagram of a baseball diamond showed the "short stop" stationed directly behind the pitcher on a line between him and second base. Apparently the second baseman played near his base, and the short stop had the job of roaming wherever he needed to help the other infielders. Only by the late 1860's did the position become what it is today, with the shortstop (becoming one word) playing between second and third as a twin of the second baseman. (Source: "The American Boy's Book of Sports and Games", published 1864)

coxfan
11-15-2013, 03:58 PM
More from Chadwick's 1868 book on baseball: Although Chadwick invented "K" for strikeout and is the father of baseball statistics, he refused to record strikeouts as a pitching stat. He considered that a strikeout was entirely the result of bad batting, and not a credit to the pitcher.