Baseball's Early Days – Different Rules and Pitching

1916

THE PITCHER'S BOX

In Baseball's Early Days It Was Just a Line Twelve Feet Long

Up to 1857, or for eighteen years after the first game of baseball was played, there was no limit to the number of innings, the first side scoring twenty-one runs, or "aces," as they were then called, being the winner. In 1857, however, the game was divided into nine innings. The pitcher had a line twelve feet long, kept behind it and could take a short run before his delivery, just the same as is permitted in cricket today.

In 1863 the old "line" for the pitcher to stand behind was done away with and the twirler limited to a "box" twelve feet long and four feet wide, but in this area he could roam at will and throw from whatever spot he pleased. A few years later the "box" was made six feet square, and in 1876 it was again reduced to four feet wide and six feet long. Ten years later it was made a foot longer and a foot wider and in 1887 cut down in length to five and one-half feet.

These "boxes" being always a source of much change and discussion, they were finally abolished altogether and a rubber slab 12 by 4 inches took their place, the pitcher being required to keep his back foot against the slab. This slab was enlarged to two feet by six inches in 1895 and has remained the same since. — Philadelphia Bulletin.