JCBA v20 at the COSMIC BASEBALL ASSOCIATION

Changing the Rules
A Chronology of Changes to Major League Baseball Official Rules

by Jennifer Baldwin
Senior Research Associate at the Cosmic Baseball Research Alliance

Alexander Cartwright and David Lucius "Doc" Adams, leaders of the New York Knickerbockers Base Ball Team drew up what is believed to be the first set of "official" baseball rules in the fall of 1845. The first game played with these so-called "Knickerbocker Rules" occurred on June 19, 1846. As this article's associated tables substantiates, there have been a variety of rules changes throughout baseball's organized history.

Many of those changes had to do with adjusting the balance between the pitcher and the batter. In 1893 when baseball moved the pitcher's mound back from 50 feet to 60 feet and six inches (60' 6") batting averages soared and strikeouts decreased. In 1963 when baseball expanded the strike zone batting averages dropped by 12 points, and homeruns declined 10 percent.

The tables in this report (use the links on the right) detail the changes by Rule Section and include several additional tables detailing rule changes for walks, batting averages and sacrifices. Table A lists all rules changes from 1845 through 1989.


Table A	Table of All Rules Changes
Table 1	Table of Rule 1 Changes (Objectives)
Table 2	Table of Rule 2 Changes (Definitions)
Table 3	Table of Rule 3 Changes (Game Preliminaries)
Table 4	Table of Rule 4 Changes (Starting & Ending Games)
Table 5	Table of Rule 5 Changes (Putting the Ball in Play)
Table 6	Table of Rule 6 Changes (The Batter)
Table 7	Table of Rule 7 Changes (The Runner)
Table 8	Table of Rule 8 Changes (The Pitcher)
Table 9	Table of Rule 9 Changes (The Umpire)
Table 10	Table of Rule 10 Changes (The Official Scorer)
Table B	Table of Rules Changes for Base on Balls (Walks)
Table C	Table of Rules Changes for Sacrifices
Table D	Table of Rules Changes for Batting Averages
Table E	Table of Rules Changes 1845-1869
Table F	Table of Rules Changes 1870-1899
Table G	Table of Rules Changes 1900-1909
Table H	Table of Rules Changes 1910-1919
Table I	Table of Rules Changes 1920-1929
Table J	Table of Rules Changes 1930-1939
Table K	Table of Rules Changes 1940-1949
Table L	Table of Rules Changes 1950-1959
Table M	Table of Rules Changes 1960-1969
Table N	Table of Rules Changes 1970-1979
Table O	Table of Rules Changes 1980-1989
Major League Baseball Rule Book In 1949 Major League Baseball re-codified the Official Rules of the game into ten sections: Objectives Definitions Game Preliminaries Starting & Ending Games Putting the Ball in Play The Batter The Runner The Pitcher The Umpire The Official Scorer MLB Official Rules Link I would like to express my gratitude to my colleagues and staff at the Cosmic Baseball Research Alliance. Their helpful assistance was invaluable. --J.B.

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Major League Baseball Rule Book