[tm1681]

TO BOUND, OR NOT TO BOUND? THAT IS THE QUESTION
DEBATE OVER FLY BALLS RAGES DURING PRESEASON RULES COMMITTEE MEETINGS

NEW YORK CITY (Mar. 14, 1864) – The Executive Committee of the National Base Ball Organization meets twice a year at the St. Nicholas Hotel in New York City: once about six weeks before the start of the season to discuss rules & regulations, and again roughly six weeks after the end of the season to discuss organizational business.

During the annual “R & R” meetings, one topic dwarfed all of the others, and it did so almost immediately: the Bound Rule, which declares that fly balls, especially those hit to the outfield, may be caught after one bounce to retire the batter for an out. Discussions about the rule’s fate had been building for years, but in this year’s set of R & R meetings the discussion turned to outright argument & debate.

On one side of the debate was much of the base ball establishment, believing that since baseball was a pastoral, gentlemanly game there was no reason to force fielders, especially those who chase the ball around the outfield, to exert extra effort and possibly sacrifice their fingers to catch a ball on the fly. On the other side of the debate was a faction led by Knickerbockers President Doc Adams, who argued that if Cricket players could catch a wooden ball on the fly to retire batters then there was no reason why base ball players cannot have enough skill to do the same with a relatively softer ball.

Adams himself first began to campaign against the Bound Rule only a year after the N.B.B.O. began play, believing that a formally organized game necessitated greater skill from its players. Adams largely stood alone in his sentiments until fairly recently, when executives from clubs who play their home games on smaller fields argued that the Bound Rule proponents whose clubs played in the huge, wide-open fields typically found in the New York League were at a distinct advantage with the Bound Rule in play. The fact that Adams, the president of the club with the largest field in existence, proposed eliminating the rule was a source of irony for many present, but he was insistent that the skill of the player trumped all.

At the end of much debate & discussion over the Bound Rule, Adams, as president of the second-oldest base ball club, was able to put the issue of removal of the Bound Rule to a formal vote for the first time. The final vote: 20 For & 28 Against, with the New York side of the N.B.B.O. providing much of the “Against” faction vote that kept the Bound Rule in place.

After the vote, Adams vowed to bring the issue to the forefront again next preseason, and to the Writers Pool it sounded as if Adams was declaring he would not rest until the Bound Rule was eliminated once and for all.

As it stood, the Bound Rule would remain in place for the 1864 season, but one had the distinct feeling that this would likely be the final season in which players could rely on waiting for the ball to bounce before grabbing it and sending a batsman back to the dugout.

NOTE: Of course, in OOTP there is no way to introduce such a mechanism since it was eliminated before 1871 anyway, but why not play pretend once in a while?