This issue of who started baseball or who made the first rules for the game is just so much malarkey. Just like it took Einstein to tell us the truth of which came first the "chicken or the egg". Must have been a tie because there has never been a declared winner. I'll tell you one thing the age old nursery rhyme of "Humpty Dumpty Sat On A Wall" then when he fell all the kings men and horses could not put him back together again. Folks that little ditty was well before "duck tape". Seriously the issue of who and when is really a part of the chicken and the egg and humpty dumpty question, it just happened. Growing up, playing baseball by playground rules, I never saw a rule book and I know of no one who I have ever known reading one. Some how we managed to get a game underway, sometimes we finished the game, and then sometimes it ended in a good argument or fight over some rules we simply made up. Would you believe we even have made rules like so many foul hits would equal a strike. Some of the bigger boys were so good at hitting,and would not want to give up their turn at bat, they would foul hit pitch after pitch. Bigger boys were in control and they would take advantage of the smaller inept players and simply toy with us and stay at bat. This old thing about getting a runner out by throwing and hitting him with the ball between bases? Where we learned that rule is beyond me? Never do I recall someone sitting us down and saying, "Now the way you get a runner out is hit him with the ball." You see somewhere way back there in history the hitting the runner with the ball got started. Here is another of those just got started rules. Rule for use with only two players playing in the front yard and a runner is on base. The defender or player in the field would toss the ball in the air. His throw would be higher and higher. At some point the runner would take off like a blue streak. Ironically, the odds were good the defender would get excited and miss handle his catch and the runner would outrun the defenders throw. The throw and the toss in the air was nothing more than another wrinkle or version of the hit the runner with the ball. You tell me where these kind of rules are written down and passed along from a rule book. My ball playing buddies, when I was growing up, never really knew there was a book with all the rules. This learning the game and playing by rules although you might say unofficial rules served us well. Like I said in my introduction most of the rules we played, by or against, were made "By some dude." When watching the bigger youngsters play and waiting our turn we absorbed the rules by observation. Right wrong or indifferent somehow we began to play by the rules which counted the most. Nothing could be more elementary than three strikes and you are out. Must tag up on a fly ball being caught. A runner must be tagged with the ball not the glove only. Running out of the baseline to avoid a tag caused more fights than being called a sissy. We learned the rules and the bigger boys made sure the rules were applied their way. If you think an umpire has control of a game you have not seen control like a sixth grader who stands a head taller than his classmates. Rules written or unwritten we loved to play the game so we learned the rules and we passed them along both altered and unaltered. This is part of the game we loved and still cherish. Batter Up---Let's Play Ball... |
