The Origins of Baseball

I found Thursday's class to be especially interesting because I am so interested in the sport of baseball. I really enjoy finding out and discovering new things about something I already know a lot about. The origins of baseball have always been kind of a hazy area for me - especially the early rules. Though a lot of the rules are the same, some I thought were kind of strange or funny. First of all, there were no called strikes, you had to swing and miss three times in order to be called out. I am very glad that this isn't the rule today because I don't see a lot of players at any level swinging and missing completely three times. Either the pitchers were very good in this era, or the games were very long with more hits and most outs came via a batted ball. I guess the point wasn't really to strike anybody out in that era but to let them hit the ball though seeing as that the pitcher was obligated to toss the ball gently. 

These are the really early days though before games even got very competitive. What really struck me however, was that even as the game progressed into a more competitive era, for a while an out could be recorded by throwing the ball at the runner. I found that funny because when I used to play stickball when I was younger we would use a tennis ball and outs could be recorded by throwing and hitting the runner with the ball. I always wondered how that came to be. As weird and interesting as some of the rules of the game were then, I am very glad where they are and have been for generations now. Baseball seems to be a game where the rules have changed the least over the course of the years. Almost every year there seems to be a rule change in professional football. I think that baseball has very sold roots and the rules for the game that were established so long ago are still perfect for today's game.