This 1895 Calvert Lithographing Co. “base ball” poster inspires little confidence that the umpire will call a good game.
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No one alive can remember a game without “working the count,” “painting the corners” or any of the other necessary strategies tilting the balance of the pitcher against the hitter. The game’s competitive flow centers on skillful manipulation of the ball-and-strike count.
But early- and mid-19th century forms of “base ball” involved the pitcher as a mere “feeder” of the ball so a batsman could strike it cleanly to evade the glove-less fielders. However, early pitchers with their underhanded deliveries did try to throw off the hitters with intentionally bad serves to make them lunge and take the oomph out of their hits. Countering such tactics, batters began taking pitches. Opposite to over-aggressive, first-ball-swinging hitters of the 21st century, some batters allowed dozens of pitches to go by before they swung, infuriating all involved in the game with the plodding pace. Think of it as an ancient precursor of the meandering pace of modern games with three innings eating up more than two hours.
To counter this maddening trend, early rules makers instituted the first formal system of called balls and strikes in 1864. But the system was only a start. The count only was triggered when the umpire decided either the pitcher or batter was stalling. While aimed at restoring balance between hurler and batsman, the new system actually allowed the home-plate umpire to assume his everlasting role of primacy as the third party in the ball-and-strike duels. The umpire now had the responsibility of determining batters’ and pitchers’ intentions.
In 1875, the umpire was mandated to call a ball on “each third unfair ball delivered.” When three balls total were called, the batter was awarded first base. In 1881, the rule was further modified for the umpire to call every pitch a ball or strike.
The maximum number of balls and strikes remained somewhat fluid during the transformative 1880s, when many facets of baseball began to resemble today’s game. Finally, in 1889, four balls and three strikes became the standard.
Accompanying fine-tuning of the rules involved foul balls. Part of the batter’s stalling tactics against the pitcher in the mid-19th century involved deliberately fouling pitches, which did not count as strikes. Only one advantage accrued to the defense with this tactic—batters were ruled out if the foul was caught on one bounce. The counting of fouls as strikes on less than a two-strike count came relatively late in baseball’s development—in 1901 in the National League and 1903 in the newly founded American League. While the 19th century featured platoons of skilled bat-handlers who could intentionally foul pitches for long stretches, the talent did not totally die out as the 20th century reached its maturity. The likes of Luke “Old Aches and Pains” Appling and select other bat-handlers could rack up impressive foul-ball totals on two strikes, adding to the burdens of pitchers who were virtually mandated to go nine innings at the time.
The final part of the equation of balls and strikes came with the conception of a formal strike zone. Early baseball, oriented toward the hitter, required the pitcher to deliver his serve to the batter’s liking, such as waist-high. Yet the earliest criticism of umpires came when they had varied interpretations of how close those pitches came to the batter’s desired spot. The initial visual conception of a strike zone came in 1871 as rules were changed to require the batter to call for either a “high” or “low” pitch. The zone for the former ranged between the shoulder and the waist, and for the latter between the waist and the knee. Put together they formed the basic strike zone going forward.
Early baseball, oriented toward the hitter, required the pitcher to deliver his serve to the batter’s liking, such as waist-high.
The lords of the game have adjusted the strike zone at modest lengths vertically at the knees and shoulders several times, depending on whether they wanted to dampen down or turn loose run production. Most recent was the expansion of the zone vertically in 1963, then contraction after 1968’s “Year of the Pitcher.” All along, pitchers, batters, and managers have waged countless battles—incurring ejections—with umpires over their interpretation of what really is a subjective visualization of the rules, varying slightly between each umpire simply because they are human.
How each end of the pitcher-batter confrontation worked four balls, three strikes governed their success. Pitchers with blazing fastballs were not afraid to leave their pitches up in the imaginary zone, trying to overpower hitters. Those with less speed tried to keep the balls down, sometimes borderline balls, so hitters could not square them. The result: infield groundballs.
On the Rare Three-Ball Walk
“Was that a three-ball walk? I only had three balls on my . . . Did you have four balls?” —Nationals radio broadcaster Dave Jageler to partner Charlie Slowes when the Reds’ Joey Votto was mistakenly given a walk after only three balls on May 31, 2015
SPITBALLING
The pattern of “pitchers’ pitches” and “hitters’ pitches” became established. A pitcher getting ahead two strikes, no balls was considered to have the advantage. More often than not he’d “waste” a ball before working to put the hitter away. But if he fell behind, say 1-0 or 2-1, the advantage shifted to the hitter. Since fastballs were the pitch that typically were kept under the most control, the odds stated the batter could expect a fastball if the pitcher was behind. Exceptions were pitchers who had mastered a splitter or knuckleball.
The greatest control pitchers of different eras were perceived to get slightly wider strike zones, simply because they could work on the inside and outside corners and in a subtle manner keep expanding the zone, with the umpires’ eyes following suit.
The combination of Hall of Famers Greg Maddux and Tom Glavine on the 1990s Atlanta Braves was a one-two punch of psychological warfare against hitters. Maddux’s 20 walks (6 intentional) in 232 2⁄3 innings in 1997 was simply stupendous. However, the man whose tenacity and baseball-pacing intelligence earned him the nicknames “Mad Dog” and “The Professor” had occasions to adeptly use the strike zone that was concocted more than a century earlier. On one occasion Maddux said walking a particular hitter was not sin, but in fact strategically sound, given the circumstances.
In response, a strategy spreading through baseball as the new millennium got under way was to train hitters to work the counts and look over as many pitches as possible. A Red Sox-Yankees night game starting at 8:00 p.m. in the Eastern Time Zone for TV’s sake meant a lot of bleary eyes due to the deliberate hitters on both sides.