[tm1681]

BASES ON BALLS TO HAVE A MISFIRE LIMIT
STARTING IN 1878, BATTERS WILL RECEIVE A FREE PASS TO FIRST BASE AFTER NINE CALLED BALLS

NEW YORK CITY (Mar. 14-18, 1878) - There wasn’t much business at this year’s Spring Executive Committee Meetings, but one notable topic was discussed and eventually agreed upon: that a Base on Balls shouldn’t come down to a subjective ruling by the Home Plate umpire.

Since the introduction of called balls & strikes in 1862, the issue of whether or not to award a Base on Balls to the batter came down to whether or not the Home Plate umpire felt that the pitcher was intentionally making unfair, unhittable deliveries to the “striker”. This meant that tolerance for the amount balls seen outside the Strike Zone before awarding a Base on Balls could vary from umpire to umpire, and thus from game to game. For old-fashioned umpires who want to let the game play itself out, that could mean twelve balls to a walk. For stricter umpires who want the pitcher to “get on with it", that might mean six balls to a walk.

During the Spring Meetings the Executive Committee tasked itself with working out a way to remove the subjectivity involved in Bases on Balls, similar to how three strikes became a Strikeout in the early 1860s to quicken the pace of the game. After some back and forth, in an discussion whose finer details are unknown it was decided that NINE BALLS should be called by the Home Plate umpire before a Base on Balls is awarded.

Will the first official standard for what constitutes a Base on Balls lead to a noticeable change in the number of free passes awarded? It’s hard to say. Given the way the game is currently played a batsman who stands around and waits for the perfect pitch to hit is almost considered a coward, even though St. John’s has won seven titles employing such an approach, so a batsman letting nine off-kilter deliveries go past time without hitting one into the field play seems like something that will still be extremely rare.

Nonetheless, for the 1878 season and on Bases on Balls and Strikeouts will have official standards:

• BASES ON BALLS: to be awarded after the ninth called Ball by the Home Plate Umpire

• STRIKEOUTS: called after the third Strike to the batsman, with one “Warning Strike” given if the first Strike is a Called Strike in which the batsman doesn’t swing at the ball.

While baseball fans shouldn’t expect a wholly different game to be played on the field in the upcoming season, at least two of the most basic elements of play will now have objective standards to follow.