There is always something new to learn about baseball, and here’s a case in point: I thought I understood the strike zone. I had to research the subject to find out.
The other day, I watched a left-handed pitcher throw a sharp breaking ball to a left-handed batter. It appeared the pitch would be way inside, but it broke at the last minute over the back of the plate before it plunked into the catcher’s mitt. “Strike three!” called the umpire.
I thought that the ball had to cross the front of the plate to be a strike. Not so.
MLB definition of a called strike: The official strike zone is the area over home plate from the midpoint between a batter’s shoulders and the top of the uniform pants — when the batter is in his stance and prepared to swing at a pitched ball — and a point just below the kneecap. To get a strike call, part of the ball must cross over part of home plate while in the aforementioned area.
So, the ball needs to cross over any part of home plate. Maybe you already knew that; I didn’t. A pitch passing outside the front of the strike zone but curving to enter the zone farther back is sometimes called a back-door strike. I knew the term but had never realized just how back-door a back-door strike can be.
The advantage for that left-handed pitcher is that he threw a pitch that was virtually impossible to hit. The same is true when a right-handed pitcher throws a sweeper that starts way outside, then breaks over the outside and back part of the plate at the last minute. That pitch is also almost impossible to hit.
Ted Williams at the plate (photo courtesy Worcester Telegram)
Ted Williams, one of the greatest hitters of all time, said the pitch on the low outside corner is the most difficult to hit. He calculated that if he swung at that pitch regularly, he would hit .130. Imagine then trying to hit the sweeper I just described.
Of course, no pitcher can always execute these kinds of pitches. But those who can with some consistency will handcuff batters.
This got me interested in the history of the strike zone. It turned out to be an extended and complicated history.
In the mid-1800s, there was no negative consequence if the batter did not swing. Since the called strike did not exist, batters could wait all day for “their” pitch.
In 1858, the National Association of Baseball Players, the first organization governing baseball, declared, “Should a striker stand at the bat without striking at good balls repeatedly pitched to him, to delay the game or of giving advantage to a player, the umpire, after warning him, shall call one strike, and if he persists in such action, two and three strikes. When three strikes are called, he shall be subject to the same rules as if he had struck at three balls.”
In 1886, the American Association adopted the first rule, leading to the creation of a defined strike zone. The rule stated that the ball must be delivered at the height called for by the batsman – high (between waist and shoulders), low (between waist and at least one foot above the ground), or fair (between the shoulders and at least one foot above the ground). If it passes over any part of the plate at such a height, it is considered a strike. The following year, the National League eliminated the batter’s right to call the height of the pitch and created the full strike zone, requiring the umpire to call a strike on any pitch that “passes over home plate not lower than the batter’s knee, nor higher than his shoulders.”
In 1907, after the American League formed in 1901, Major League Baseball defined a fairly delivered ball, or strike, as one that passes over any portion of the home base, before touching the ground, not lower than the batter’s knee, nor higher than his shoulder.
In 1950, MLB redefined the strike zone as ‘that space over home plate which is between the batter’s armpits and the top of his knees when he assumes his natural stance.’
3’7″ Eddie at the plate (photo courtesy LA Daily News)
St. Louis Browns’ owner Bill Veeck, a showman known for publicity stunts, signed a little person, Eddie Gaedel, three feet, seven inches tall, to a contract, and had him bat in a game against the Detroit Tigers on August 19, 1951. Veeck trained Gaedel to assume a tight crouch at the plate. He measured Gaedel’s strike zone in that stance and claimed it was just one and a half inches high!
But when Gaedel came to bat, he abandoned the crouch. It didn’t matter. The pitcher threw four straight balls, all high. That was Gaedel’s first and last appearance in a Major League baseball game.
After Roger Maris’s record home run year in 1961, MLB increased the top of the strike zone in 1963 from the armpit to the top of the shoulder. Pitchers began to dominate, as in 1968 when Denny McLain won 31 games, Bob Gibson posted a 1.12 ERA, and Carl Yastrzemski was the only American League hitter to bat over .300.
To help the dwindling offense, in 1969 MLB lowered the height of the mound from 15 inches to 10 inches and reduced the size of the strike zone to extend from the batter’s armpits to the top of the knees. In 1988, the strike zone was redefined as an area over home plate, with the upper limit at the midpoint between the top of the shoulders and the top of the uniform pants, and the lower level at the top of the knees.
Then, in 1996, MLB expanded the lower end of the strike zone, moving it from the top of the knees to the bottom of the knees.
As Automated Balls and Strikes (ABS) marches toward MLB acceptance, the system will have no problem adjusting to any future changes in the strike zone. But I will have trouble adjusting to a robot making the calls.
