Rules
The form of the Massachusetts Game best known today comes from a set of rules drawn up in 1858 by the Massachusetts Association of Base Ball Players at Dedham. . Although it was recognizably a type of baseball, some features of the Massachusetts Game are very different from modern baseball:
- The playing field had four bases, 60 feet apart. The fourth base was still called Home, but the "striker" stood mid-way between fourth and first base.
- Fielders were allowed to put a runner out by hitting him with a thrown ball - a practice called "soaking" or "plugging".
- There was no foul territory, and baserunners were not required to stay within the baselines.
Two "modern" features of the Massachusetts Game were not present in New York-style rules drawn up the same year by National Association of Base Ball Players .
- "The Ball must be thrown - not pitched or tossed..." In the jargon of the times, throwing meant delivering the ball overhand. The NABBP rules state "The ball must be pitched, not jerked nor thrown", meaning delivered underhand. Major League baseball did not allow overhand pitching for another 25 years.
- "The ball must be caught flying in all cases." Under New York rules, a catch on one bounce was still allowed.
Read more about this topic: The Massachusetts Game
Famous quotes containing the word rules:
“The average educated man in America has about as much knowledge of what a political idea is as he has of the principles of counterpoint. Each is a thing used in politics or music which those fellows who practise politics or music manipulate somehow. Show him one and he will deny that it is politics at all. It must be corrupt or he will not recognize it. He has only seen dried figs. He has only thought dried thoughts. A live thought or a real idea is against the rules of his mind.”
—John Jay Chapman (1862–1933)
“There is no country in which so absolute a homage is paid to wealth. In America there is a touch of shame when a man exhibits the evidences of large property, as if after all it needed apology. But the Englishman has pure pride in his wealth, and esteems it a final certificate. A coarse logic rules throughout all English souls: if you have merit, can you not show it by your good clothes and coach and horses?”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)
“In really hard times the rules of the game are altered. The inchoate mass begins to stir. It becomes potent, and when it strikes,... it strikes with incredible emphasis. Those are the rare occasions when a national will emerges from the scattered, specialized, or indifferent blocs of voters who ordinarily elect the politicians. Those are for good or evil the great occasions in a nation’s history.”
—Walter Lippmann (1889–1974)