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EXCO MANDATES MULTIPLE FIELD CHANGES FOR 1874
BATTER’S BOX, PITCHER’S BOX, FAIR/FOUL POLES ARE NEW ELEMENTS OF THE SPORT

Images used are taken from www.19cbaseball.com & modified, and the changes described here reflect the changes made in real life over the end of 1873 and the beginning of 1874.

NEW YORK CITY (Mar 16-20, 1874) - After a year where the rules of the sport of baseball were left untouched, the joint APBL/NBBO Executive Committee has decided on major changes to the field of play ahead of the 1874 season.

Ahead of play in 1872 the Executive Committee made one of the biggest changes to the sport since the doing away of the Bound Rule in 1865: pitchers were allowed to snap their wrists to add speed and/or spin rate to the ball for the first time. In addition, the Pitcher’s Area was modified and changes that made the official game ball slightly smaller were put into place.

After the rule changes led to significant decreases in Bases on Balls and Runs during the 1872 season, the Executive Committee left the rules & regulations as they were during the 1873 Spring Meetings, and season that proceeded saw scoring go back up as, after a year, batters had successfully adjusted to the new pitching style that had been put in place.

During this year’s Spring Meetings, the Executive Committee put in one of its busiest weeks of work ever, a series of meetings that how the field would look for batsmen and pitchers alike.

As it stood, a batsman was allowed to swing at the ball from anywhere on a three-foot horizontal line that extended from the middle of Home Plate. However, the line was vague and required multiple points of clarification. Batsmen could move on the line as much as they wanted before the pitch was made, but then had to stop moving once the ball started moving. Those “in the act of striking the ball” could have their back foot on the line without taking a further step backward, or they could have their front foot on the line without taking another step forward, or they could straddle the line without having either foot more than a yard from the line. Those who were bunting could have both feet on the line.

With one rule requiring that many clarifications, it was Niagara president Thomas Spencer who wondered if all of the above subrules required to make sense of the Batter’s Line should be combined and turned into an area from which the batsman be wherever he wants to be when facing the pitcher. And thus, the Batter’s Box was born.

Spencer’s plan was simple: take the three-foot width of the line, combine it with the three feet on either side of the line that batsmen are allowed to stride, and turn it into an enclosed area where the batsman may hit the ball from.

The result was a 3’ x 6’ enclosed space in which the batsman had to remain as the pitch was incoming: the first Batter’s Box.

There was one minor adjustment that had to be made. Since only the bat could be over the plate when “striking” or bunting the ball, the inside boundaries of the new Batter’s Box were placed at one foot off Home Plate, making the line extending from the center a new distance of eight feet as opposed to six.

Spencer then had another thought. Why not take the two lines of the Pitcher’s Area and enclose them too?

Since the start of play in 1867, the Pitcher’s area had consisted of two lines. The first, entered on a line extending 45’ from the midpoint of Home Plate, was a six-foot wide, horizontal line. The second was another six-foot horizontal line drawn exactly six feet behind the first. It was from anywhere between the two lines that the pitcher could deliver a ball from, with most starting their delivery at the back line and finishing at the front line.

Spencer’s idea was another simple one: take the two lines of the Pitcher’s Area, add perpendicular lines at each end, and turn the Pitcher’s Area into the brand-new “Pitcher’s Box”, in which a pitcher had to remain before and during delivery of the ball.

Spencer’s thinking was that as long as the Batter’s Line was going to be turned into an enclosed space it was only fair to do the same with the two lines representing the Pitcher’s Area.

The ideas gained rapid approval. The multiple sub-points of the Batter’s Line would no longer be needed, with both batter and pitcher starting play from spaces that had no need for interpretation. The Batter’s Box & Pitcher’s Box easily gathered the veto-proof number of votes needed, and they would be in play for the 1874 season.

Then came issue number three. Until the end of the 1873 season, the baseball field had a notable oddity: at the end of a straight line ending 100’ from 1st & 3rd bases were a pair of flags marking the difference between fair and foul territory.

These flags came to be seen as strange because they were nowhere near the outfield fences that were becoming increasingly prevalent in baseball venues, and as such they were in play and had to be manuevered around by fielders.

American BC president Daniel Matthews, whose team played at Glenwood Field with its shortest-in-baseball 281-foot Right Field fence, proposed another simple solution: mount the flags on flagpoles and place them at the outfield fences. The fair/foul markers would no longer be directly in play, and at the same time the markers that allowed players & umpires to tell fair balls from foul in the outfield would remain in place.

While some teams still played in venues that resembled the fields that the sport was played on during the 1840s & 50s, it was another idea that gained quick approval. Knickerbocker, who had the oldest & largest venue in baseball, was allowed to keep their fair/foul flags, but they along with every other team were going to put up flagpoles at the outfield fences for 1874.

It was quite a week for the Executive Committee. Their changes, in summary:

• The Batter’s Line is now a “Batter’s Box” that is 3’ x 6’ and begins one foot from either side of Home Plate.
• The Pitcher’s Area is now a “Pitcher’s Box” that is 6’ square and begins 45’ the center of Home Plate.
• The boundary flags located 190’ feet down the 1st/3rd baselines have been replaced with flagpoles at the fences.

The Executive Committee didn’t anticipate their changes having an effect on run production during the upcoming season, but of course only time would tell.