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:
“Each person calls barbarism whatever is not his or her own practice.... We may call Cannibals barbarians, in respect to the rules of reason, but not in respect to ourselves, who surpass them in every kind of barbarity.”
—Michel de Montaigne (1533–1592)
“However patriarchal the world, at home the child knows that his mother is the source of all power. The hand that rocks the cradle rules his world. . . . The son never forgets that he owes his life to his mother, not just the creation of it but the maintenance of it, and that he owes her a debt he cannot conceivably repay, but which she may call in at any time.”
—Frank Pittman (20th century)
“The reason why men enter into society, is the preservation of their property; and the end why they choose and authorize a legislative, is, that there may be laws made, and rules set, as guards and fences to the properties of all the members of the society: to limit the power, and moderate the dominion, of every part and member of the society.”
—John Locke (1632–1704)