The Foul Strike Rule

Exploring an old controversy

Image taken from The Cincinnati Post, April 11, 1901, page 2

The rule change was intended to speed up play and make the game more enjoyable. Traditionalists hated it, and predicted that it would lead to the ruin of the sport.

No, I’m not talking about the pitch clock. I’m talking about the foul strike rule.

The Foul Strike Rule

It’s really hard to believe that not all foul balls counted as strikes at one point in time.

But it’s true.

This old Matt Snyder article is the best bit of research I’ve found on the subject. And the history behind this rule really surprised me.

For some reason, I always assumed that the rule change in the National League in 1901 was to start calling strikeouts when a ball was bunted foul with two outs. That’s not the case, however. From the Snyder article:

I know that I’m often guilty of poking fun at the sabermetricans who worship baseball statistics — but, seriously, how many extra strikes were called because the umpire decided it was an “intentional” foul ball?

And the rule was enforced, by the way — particularly for foul bunts. I quickly came across a few examples of foul bunts counting as third strikes in 1900. For example, this is from a Brooklyn Daily Eagle account of a Brooklyn game in August 1900:

From The Brooklyn Daily Eagle, August 6, 1900, page 10

Here’s another one from The Philadelphia Times a day later:

From The Philadelphia Times, August 7, 1900, page 10

Amateur leagues used the foul bunt rule as well:

From The Pittsburg Post, May 24, 1900, page 6. I included the full context, though it’s clear that not all of these short remarks applied to the Interstate League alone.

The Rule Book

In fact, this was actually a codified rule. The following comes from the 1900 Reach Guide:

From Reach’s Official Base Ball Guide 1900, page 127

From Reach’s Official Base Ball Guide 1900, page 128

And then, in Rule 45, a batter is called out if:

From Reach’s Official Base Ball Guide 1900, page 128

From Reach’s Official Base Ball Guide 1900, page 129

I’m assuming that section 4 referred to bunting a ball foul with two strikes. Section 7, on the other hand, is pretty surprising — and also requires the discretion of the umpire.

And, by the way, this rule was actually codified in 1894, and was not just a “suggestion” as Snyder insinuates. We can find that easily in The Spalding Guide:

From Spalding’s Base Ball Guide 1894, page 141

Sections 4 and 7 of Rule 45 are also the same:

From Spalding’s Base Ball Guide 1894, page 142

The Change

It’s important to go over these archaic rules to understand what changed in the National League before the 1901 season began.

That rule change came on February 27, 1901:

From The Chicago Tribune, February 28, 1901, page 8

We can surmise from the wording in this article that the problem of intentionally fouling off pitches to prolong at bats had not been solved by allowing umpires to use their own judgment.

Here’s an article that put that issue much more bluntly:

From The Indianapolis News, February 25, 1901, page 8

And, when it was put in place, the traditionalists balked — even in the minor leagues:

From The Los Angeles Evening Express, July 13, 1901, page 9

There were other, more prominent people who disagreed with the rule. Take the Cincinnati Enquirer sports section, for example:

From The Enquirer (Cincinnati), March 10, 1901, page 9. Apologies for the poor legibility, which is really a shame given what great baseball coverage this paper had at this time.

The staff of The Philadelphia Inquirer was also upset:

From The Philadelphia Inquirer, March 4, 1901, page 6

Note, of course, that the proposed rule regarding batsmen hit by pitch was abandoned before the season started.

Of course, there was one fan whose opinion mattered more than anybody else’s:

From The Montreal Daily Star, March 5, 1901, page 2

Rule Changes

Now, if you read carefully, you’ll see parallels to some of the problems we have today.

The problem that needed to be solved was the pace of play, which had been lagging in 1900. Now, we know that this was likely caused by rowdiness and cheating on the part of certain teams (especially the teams in Brooklyn and New York), combined with the fact that the National League decided to go back to using only 1 umpire per game for cost reasons. More on that later.

However, it is also apparent that deliberately fouling balls off had also become a major issue. The pace of play lagged because hitters were fouling balls off left and right without any consequence.

Does that sound familiar?

When a rule change was proposed to address the obviously unwanted behavior, everybody balked. I’ve shared only a small sampling of critical articles from major newspapers. I found dozens of these articles in early March 1901, articles from papers all over the United States — and that’s counting only the articles available at newspapers.com that are legible enough to be searchable!

The reasons behind the complaints should also sound familiar to you. Fouling balls off is “scientific,” they claimed. Batters simply won’t be able to hit the way they once could if they have to abide by this rule.

You can see the impact of the foul strike rule discussed in every single postseason article that analyzed National League offense. Here’s a quick example:

From The Republic (St. Louis), October 14, 1901, page 3

But keep in mind that this is a rule that meant that a strike would be charged if the ball was hit foul. I mean, this is such a basic, fundamental part of the rules of baseball that it’s still hard for me to believe that it wasn’t always in place! From reading the rhetoric, you would think that Nick Young told the players to go around the bases backwards.

One more point. The modern statistical savants (not to mention the Savannah Bananas) might applaud this suggested rule change attributed to Ban Johnson:

From The Indianapolis News, February 25, 1901, page 8

If Johnson only knew that the best way to eliminate the sacrifice bunt altogether was to mathematically “prove” it useless!