banning square bats was huge for another reason: it severed a huge tie to cricket, one of the sports that contributed to the development of the sport.

Thank you for covering 19th century baseball. It's a fascinating time that doesn't get covered enough.

Thank you for the engaging historic perspectives on baseball's evolution. Great content! Well done 👍

Thank you for just making these in general. My friends think I’m insane for loving guys like Cap Anson, Ed Delahanty, and Pug Galvin. And just the craziness of the sport back then

Great job....I am a baseball geek and knowing the rules from the 1800s is amazing to me..Thanks much and looking forward to more from your channel.

Dude, your channel is awesome and I look forward to every new video. Stick with it and this channel is gonna explode.

Pitchers are getting better but batters are also willing to strike out more often in the name of hitting the ball farther when they do make contact.

I really enjoyed this video, keep up the great work! Jim Creighton sure was something special.

Excellent video! Serious research, wonderful content, solid delivery, appropriate soundtrack, and terrific visuals. Bravo!

The 1893 rule of 60'6'' was basically the Amos Rusie rule because he threw so hard and had struck Hughie Jennings in the head the year before. Amos led all pitchers in strikeouts for few more years after then, after developing arm problems, was traded from the Giants to the Reds for Christy Mathewson. Pretty much completely forgotten legend of the game.

Interesting, according to the box score shown @:58, the Excelsior club batted in the bottom of the ninth with a 22-4 lead.

Don't forget that in 1887 walks counted as hits for BA purposes

Great video. 19th century baseball is so fascinating. Getting to see presentations like this add considerably to the joy of the game👍

Love this. Great work bringing this to life. Super interesting, informative, educational and just great content.

As a fan of old time baseball, pre 2000's I enjoyed the video. Great work.

I love a pitcher’s duel.

Awesome. More like this please.

Good work; thanks. Somebody should do a video on how the glove developed over the decades.

Love this channel, keep the content coming!!

Very nice. I enjoyed the history of baseball it answered a great many questions I had. Great job!!!

Absolutely fascinating! Thank you for this!

Great eye opener for me, who likes baseball, but never delved into the deep, storied past. Very entertaining.

Love the videos! Great content, keep it up. For once the algorithm brings me in on the ground floor

Glad I found this channel !!

I liked your video a lot and I have subscribed. Good work!

Very informative-and something I appreciate, not at bloated. Great video.

I find this timing humorous. "What happened in 1863?" "Baseball added called balls to its rules...oh and the Battle of Gettysburg."

Great video, very educational. Thank you!

Awesome! Love your content!!!!

One name came to mind as soon as I saw this. Denton True "Cy" Young

Loved it! Thanks!

Excellent

Excellent video

Would enjoy hearing a comparison between the NY Yankees of 1927 and Philadelphia A's of early 1930s.

Awesome video thanks!

Baseball loves to compare stats over long periods of time. But as this video show, you just can't. I especially loathe stats from the 19th century because the game was incredibly different. By the time MLB took its current form in 1901, things had largely standardized. But it's still hard. You have the incredible hitting eras of the '20s and '30s. The entire American League, pitchers included, hit .301 in 1930. You also have the Dead Ball Era of the first two decades before that, when pitching, bunting, stealing, and hitting for average were the tenets of the game. Or the Pitcher's era of the late 1960s. Remember 1930 when the whole American League hit .301? In 1968, one ONE HITTER reached that mark (Yaz). (Only five in the NL.) When examining the great ones, pay less attention to their numbers and more attention to where they stood among their peers when they played. That way, you'll be less likely to elect Harold Baines to the Hall of Fame, and more likely not to ignore Dick Allen for all these decades.

Great stuff.

Thanks for the journey from Mound to Home Plate.

Excellent!!!

Loved it.

beautiful

Loved the dates. Lowering the mound hit w I was 15 as a pitcher. It sucked! And still does. We pitched whole games back then and Always Hit for ourselves ran or better yet stole bases to boot.

I daresay that fellow isn't letting me have a go at the ball. It's as if he wants me to miss. Bully to you sir

Cool video, thanks

Great video especially if you're a fan of baseball history.

He was killing them softly

Thank you for the information. I learned a couple new things. I think it's time for a change. They need to make the game more exciting. There are too many strikeouts. They need to get the ball in play like they used to when the game first started. I have been saying for several years now they need to limit the speed of the pitch to around 85 mph. If the ball exceeds that speed it is considered a ball no matter if it was in the strike zone or not.

Great vid. Subbed.

Interesting, thank you

There's some old video of Whitey Ford pitching. His fastball looks to me like it tops out at 88mph. It looks like batting practice.

Any video that mentions Old Hoss is gonna get a thumbs up from me

Great Video! Thanks.... I like the history of the game. The current game - not so much.

I didn't know there was a 3-batter rule for pitchers now.

After 1968, "The Year of the Pitcher," where Bob Gibson had an 1.21 ERA and Denny McLain had 31 wins, MBL management went into panic mode to try to get more offense into the game. They lowered the mound six inches and shrank the strike zone. The effect was minimal. Pitchers adapted by using more of the lower part of the strike zone. But, as said previously, the batters went more for power and HRs instead of good contact and base hits. Thus, more strikeouts and catchable fly balls.

I've heard that leagues are experimenting on moving the pitchers mound back a foot or two. With many pitchers throwing over 100 mph and batting averages shrinking, I think that this could be a good solution to solve the hitting drought in the major and minor leagues.

You should consider making video about how World Series rewards were changed overtime, especially considering how initially it wasn't the rings that were awarded to players.

MLB has asked the Atlantic League to test out a 61'6" mound. I think a possible change to the distance in mlb is coming due to low league wide batting averages.

How would you be able to hit the ball if the mound was only 10 feet away ?

The shrinking of field size is another advantage to hitters

I prefer low scoring baseball. It makes the big hits more exciting and important.

While it is true that pitchers are bigger, more athletic, and have a better understanding of mechanics than ever before, the biggest reason strikeouts are up is because of the way the game is approached on both ends. From the pitcher's perspective, the emphasis is to throw as hard as you can for as long as you can, and when you run out of gas, the next guy will come in and do the same thing. When pitchers were expected to finish their starts, they tried to induce weak contact, and only reached back for the gas when necessary. ("Strikeouts are boring, besides, they're fascist. Throw some ground balls, it's more democratic." - Crash Davis). As for hitters, strikeouts used to be stigmatized, nothing good can happen if you don't put the ball in play. Now it's merely the cost of doing business, the benefits of power hitting are thought to outweigh the negatives of striking out. You should also delve into the details of Jim Creighton's death, a huge part of early baseball mythology. Otherwise, great work.

Holy fck this is so sick

Imagine if you could make your videos to 20 minutes on a subject. It would be amazing!

Do a video on baseball and the influence of organized gamblers.

We were having a thread about this year's season yesterday and how pitchers are getting away with using small amounts of sticky stuff again, and somehow the convo got to using glow-in-the-dark baseballs and using blacklights on the field. The purists howl but the game will keep on altering.

So they originally pitched underhand, from 45 feet. Sounds like softball lol.

Wow… no wonder Koufax and Gibson were so dominant- the mound was 10” higher until the late 60s. I think in 69 it went to present height. Imagine randy Johnson pitching from an 18” mound- frightening

I think everyone should be aware of the history of baseball, because people tend to think 'change is bad' when the game needs to change, I come with ideas to improve things all the time, including baseball heres a few make the baseball easy to produce and consistent, instead of hand crafted less groves on the ball to make it harder to spin, move the mound back count home runs as 'outs' but keep the runs scored put limits on how many runs per inning, like 3 runs, unless a team is behind so they can catch up if a team is ahead by a large enough margin by the 7th inning, end the game, no point in playing later innings if the team has a less than 1 percent change of winning limit it to 3strikes/3 balls give the catcher a foam seat only allow a player to play a position for 3 innings, so they have to change things up allow some padding for batters to protect against hpb, or fielders, like first baseman free base if a pitcher throws at a batters head robo umps for balls/strikes if game is tied in 9th+ innings, load the bases to get the game over with add a larger first base in the foul territory, if they touch that they have to stay on first, if they touch the in play side of the base they are 'live' and can be tagged, instead of a guessing game of 'if they looked' at 2nd base add a larger home plate, that extends forward, if the catcher is touching that when a player touches home they are out, instead of having to tag or collide

Very cool, Bro. Danka.

Have you read Keep Your Eye on the ball; A Study of the Physics of Baseball by Watts? Out of print but a must read. No you cannot have mine.

In the early days, fouls were not strikes so at bats could be quite long. In response they changed the rule so the first two fouls are counted as strikes. I've always considered that change to be one of baseball's less logical rules but I understand why they made it.

"banned square bats, for bunting" 🤣

Baseball needs to adjust the mound, both lowering it and increasing the distance, and keep tweaking it until there is a solid balance between offense and defense, where even the worst teams can average scoring around 5-6 runs per game. There are far too many strikeouts in the game today. And more homers would be a very good thing for MLB to try to attract desperately needed younger fans.

I thought that was Doyle Lawson

So who was baseballs first unhittable pitcher? Did I miss it?

One big reason why batting averages are low is everyone swinging for the fences. The idea of ",hit 'em where they ain't" like willie keeler , dropping a bunt when the infielders are playing deep isn't as hitting 500 ft homeruns. "singles hitters drive chevies, homerun hitters drive Cadillacs" is still a belief. Guys who might hit ten a year still try to hit 50. If you add in a strike zine that's as usuve as unicorns. varying from umpire to umlire and the pitcher maintains the advantage. Ysed ti be, when I was a kid. the strike zone was the letters, or the armpit, to the knees. I've seen pitches at the belt called balls ( too high). Pitchers don't usually go more than 5-6 innings now, and a reliever throwing 90+ comes in, whete in the old days, pitchers were expected to pitch coplete games, and relievers were guys who couldn't be starters. either older ot sore armed. It's a different game now.

Well...who was it??

When did the chewing tobacco era end in baseball?

Batters only try to hit homeruns every time. Nobody puts the ball in play... (maybe now with pitch clock things will change)

I wish I was an unhittable pitcher lol

Time to lower the mound.

Guy is 1869 were throwing 20 mph

Pitchers keep getting more and more spin rate for getting outs.,,, there I fixed it for you.

Gotta get back and feed them hogs

Not sure if pitchers are getting better per se. Throwing faster? ok. The mindset of hitters have changed as far as batting average is concerned. Who thinks the dreaded "shift" would work back in the day up into the 90's? Hitters would have exploited it. And this launch angle crap. Sure there are more home runs, but less "small-ball" type of offensive baseball (the kind I favor). So I don't know if it's better pitching (maybe?) or different approach to what matters to hitters (homers = $$$) Chicks dig the long ball...or...we didn't even bring modern analytics to the discussion.

8.68 strikeouts per team, per game with few balls put into play summarizes perfectly why the game today has become unwatchable. A shame.

Actually, modern pitchers are not getting “better,” they are using engineered sticky substances (last year’s brief moment of enforcement aside) to increase spin rates and pitch speeds to get out dumber all or nothing batters.

It's not that pitchers have gotten better these days. It's a proven fact that umpiring has gotten worse!

100 years later, the MLB will not allow Atlanta to host an all-star game based on a pile of lies. To hell with the MLB.

Pitchers are not better ? ? ?

Baseball is so boring