At the convention in 1863 the committee on rules again reported in favor of the fly game, and it was again voted down. An important move, however, was made in regard to the pitcher. This compelled him to stand perfectly still while delivering the ball, without taking a step forward, in a space twelve by three feet. For the first time, call balls were introduced to punish the pitcher for wildness, just as the striker had been penalized, previously, for not striking at good balls. Base runners, heretofore permitted to go around or near bases in a circuit, had to touch them.
In the convention of 1864 the catch of a fair ball on the ground no longer put a man out, as the fly game was adopted by a vote of 32 to 19. In 1865 the rule dividing professionals from amateurs was adopted by a nearly unanimous vote of the representatives of almost two hundred clubs.
In 1867 the batter was prevented from taking a forward or backward step in striking at the ball upon the penalty of "no strike." This was a very confusing feature of the play of the previous season, it being attempted to help base running. The pitcher now stood in a space six feet square. The batter could take two steps forward, provided he had one foot back of the line of his position when he struck at the ball.
The rule relating to compensation described as professionals all who were paid for their services either by "money, place, or emolument."
Arthur Pue Gorman, afterward United States Senator from Maryland, was elected president of the National Association at a meeting held in Clinton Hall, New York, December 12, 1866, when there were more than two hundred clubs represented.
Baseball Invades the West.
Meanwhile, baseball had made its way West as far back as 1857. Chicago had a crack team called the Excelsiors, which went to Rockford, Illinois, in 1864, and won glory by defeating the Forest Citys of that place. The Atlantics was another Chicago club that played on the North Side, but did not have the prestige of the Excelsiors. Baseball got a great boom in that region from the tournaments held there. The Excelsiors were victorious in those held in Bloomington, Illinois, in 1866, and in Rockford, in 1867.
To return to the East. In 1862 the Eckfords, of Brooklyn, won the supremacy from the Atlantics, and held it through the season of 1863, during which they did not lose a single game—a feat since duplicated only by Harry Wright's Cincinnati Reds in 1869. The Atlantics regained their lost honors, however, in 1864, and held them for three years. Their chief competitors were the Athletics, of Philadelphia, and the Mutuals, of New York. The Atlantics did not lose a game in 1864 and 1865—a feat that has never been equaled.
The Athletics, of Philadelphia, gained renown by going through the season of 1866 with only two defeats—those at the hands of the Atlantics, of Brooklyn, and the Unions, of Morrisania, then a suburb of New York City.
The feeling between the Brooklyn and the Philadelphia boys ran so high that when they met in Philadelphia, October 1, 1866, it was estimated that the contest was witnessed by more than forty thousand persons, the largest crowd ever known to have gathered to see a ball contest. The crush was so great that after one inning had been played it was found impossible to continue, and the game was postponed until October 22.