| This issue of who started baseball or who made | | | | toss the ball in the air. His throw would be higher |
| the first rules for the game is just so much | | | | and higher. At some point the runner would take |
| malarkey. Just like it took Einstein to tell us the | | | | off like a blue streak.Ironically, the odds were |
| truth of which came first the "chicken or the egg". | | | | good the defender would get excited and miss |
| Must have been a tie because there has never | | | | handle his catch and the runner would outrun the |
| been a declared winner.I'll tell you one thing the | | | | defenders throw. The throw and the toss in the |
| age old nursery rhyme of "Humpty Dumpty Sat | | | | air was nothing more than another wrinkle or |
| On A Wall" then when he fell all the kings men | | | | version of the hit the runner with the ball.You tell |
| and horses could not put him back together again. | | | | me where these kind of rules are written down |
| Folks that little ditty was well before "duck | | | | and passed along from a rule book. My ball playing |
| tape".Seriously the issue of who and when is really | | | | buddies, when I was growing up, never really |
| a part of the chicken and the egg and humpty | | | | knew there was a book with all the rules. This |
| dumpty question, it just happened.Growing up, | | | | learning the game and playing by rules although |
| playing baseball by playground rules, I never saw a | | | | you might say unofficial rules served us well.Like I |
| rule book and I know of no one who I have ever | | | | said in my introduction most of the rules we |
| known reading one. | | | | played, by or against, were made "By some |
| Some how we managed to get a game | | | | dude." When watching the bigger youngsters play |
| underway, sometimes we finished the game, and | | | | and waiting our turn we absorbed the rules by |
| then sometimes it ended in a good argument or | | | | observation. Right wrong or indifferent somehow |
| fight over some rules we simply made up.Would | | | | we began to play by the rules which counted the |
| you believe we even have made rules like so | | | | most.Nothing could be more elementary than |
| many foul hits would equal a strike. Some of the | | | | three strikes and you are out. Must tag up on a |
| bigger boys were so good at hitting,and would not | | | | fly ball being caught. A runner must be tagged |
| want to give up their turn at bat, they would foul | | | | with the ball not the glove only. Running out of |
| hit pitch after pitch. Bigger boys were in control | | | | the baseline to avoid a tag caused more fights |
| and they would take advantage of the smaller | | | | than being called a sissy.We learned the rules and |
| inept players and simply toy with us and stay at | | | | the bigger boys made sure the rules were applied |
| bat.This old thing about getting a runner out by | | | | their way. If you think an umpire has control of a |
| throwing and hitting him with the ball between | | | | game you have not seen control like a sixth |
| bases? Where we learned that rule is beyond | | | | grader who stands a head taller than his |
| me? Never do I recall someone sitting us down | | | | classmates.Rules written or unwritten we loved to |
| and saying, "Now the way you get a runner out is | | | | play the game so we learned the rules and we |
| hit him with the ball."You see somewhere way | | | | passed them along both altered and unaltered. |
| back there in history the hitting the runner with | | | | This is part of the game we loved and still |
| the ball got started. Here is another of those just | | | | cherish.Batter Up---Let's Play Ball...Major Wiley B. |
| got started rules. Rule for use with only two | | | | Channell USMC (retired) playing by the rules at till |
| players playing in the front yard and a runner is | | | | trouble starts. When trouble breaks out we break |
| on base. The defender or player in the field would | | | | in with the real rules of playing baseball. |