If you’re in the mood for historical baseball hilarity, you need to check out a piece from Cut4, 10 bizarre baseball rules you won’t believe actually existed.
In a rundown of ten rules you’ll find hard to believe, author Chris Landers reminds us why baseball begins its own “common era” in 1901. At one point, for a few examples, a batter could request low or high pitches, use a flat bat, force pitchers to throw underhand and catch balls for outs of the bounce.
Each interesting, but since overturned, rule comes with a little bit of background and explanation providing context into America’s pastime. It is well worth your time.
Some of my favorites include walks counting as hits, ground rule doubles counting as home runs and walk off home runs only counting for as many bases as it needed to score the winning run. But the cream of the crop is when MLB outlawed spitballs in 1920, they grandfathered in pitchers who’d previously used the obviously unfair advantage.
Never upset the status quo!