Threw Balls at Player.
Before baseball, as recognized as the game of to-day, came into vogue, the rules allowed a man to be declared out if he were struck by a thrown ball. This schoolboy rule was soon abolished, and it was required that a runner had to be touched to be ruled out. This was the first departure from the primitive rules.
At this period, too, the game was won by the club making the largest number of "aces" or runs in a given time. Then was substituted the idea of team innings, the club scoring the largest number of runs in nine innings was pronounced the winner in a match.
The rudimentary character of the game in its infancy can, moreover, be seen from the fact that under the first code of rules the pitcher could deliver the ball as wildly as he chose, for there was no penalty for poor pitching. The batsman, on the other hand, could offer at the ball when he felt so disposed.
In 1845 baseball had become a recognized sport. It had passed the period when it was looked upon merely as a schoolboy's game, for in September of that year the Knickerbocker Club, of New York, was formed. At the same time a code of rules was adopted, and these form the basis of the elaborate laws of the game to-day.
This first code was as follows:
"Section 1—The bases from 'home' to second base, forty-two paces; from first to third base, forty-two paces, equidistant.
"Sec. 2—The game to consist of twenty-one counts or aces, but at the conclusion an equal number of hands must be played.
"Sec. 3—The ball must be pitched and thrown for the bat.
"Sec. 4—A ball knocked outside the range of the first or the third base is a foul.
"Sec. 5—Three balls being struck at and being missed, and the last one caught, is a hand out; if not caught is considered fair, and the striker is bound to run.
"Sec. 6—A ball being struck or tipped and caught either flying or on the first bound, is a hand out.
"Sec. 7—A player running the bases shall be out—if the ball is in the hands of an adversary on the base, as the runner is touched by it before he makes his base; it being understood, however, that in no instance is a ball to be thrown at him.
"Sec. 8—A player running who shall prevent an adversary from catching or getting the ball before making his base is a hand out.
"Sec. 9—If two hands are already out, a player running home at the time the ball is struck cannot make an ace if the striker is caught out.
"Sec. 10—Three hands out, all out.
"Sec. 11—Players must take their strike in regular turn.
"Sec. 12—No ace or base can be made on a foul strike.
"Sec. 13—A runner cannot be put out in making one base when a balk is made by the pitcher.
"Sec. 14—But one base allowed when the ball bounds out of the field when struck."