Baseball: The Three Major Rule Changes In Baseball

How many times have you see a major league baseball game end with a team having 21 runs scored? This might seem impossible, however, in the original game, baseball would be played until this occurred (Cartwright). This is just one of the three major rules that were changed in baseball. The other two are that the pitchers could only throw underhand, and that if the ball was hit and bounced once then caught it was still called an out (Cartwright). The three major rule changes in baseball changed the way pitchers pitched, that fielders played and how the whole game is played in general. The biggest change in baseball was the rule change of pitching underhand only to being able to pitch overhand. At first baseball was more revolved around having fun, so pitchers did not mind batters hitting the ball (Davies,27). This rule was enforced by the man who wrote the rules, Alexander J. Cartwright, since he was quoted saying, “Let

This was very problematic for the fielders since ball was thrown hard, hit harder, and then came down fast. Back then most people did not care a lot about safety, after gloves were started to be allowed many people still did not use them since it was seen as “unmanly” to use a glove(Davies,37). This then created many ways for people to get hurt playing baseball. So many of the rules helped yet this one rule, hurt others while helping some. The game of baseball has been around since around the mid-1800s. And it has not had a lot of major rule changes .Yet the rules that have been changed in the sport of baseball, are important so we can have the game of baseball. After having the pitchers modify the having way they play, having the length of the game change in a big way, and changing the way defenses play. Because of these changes we now get to watch “America’s pastime” as we know it