History of the Strike Zone

During the first 12 years of baseball history, there was no such thing as a called strike. If the hitter didn't swing at a pitch over the plate, it was just a "do-over".

When the National League was formed in 1858, the Major League pitching mound was just 45 feet from the plate. The batter would inform the umpire (and pitcher) of his preference for a high or low pitch. If the pitch was not in the specified area and the batter didn't swing, the umpire would call a strike. But, if that was the third strike, the batter would get a warning to swing at the next pitch or be called out. A ball would not be called until three pitches were thrown outside of the strike zone. And, three balls caused a walk. So, it took 9 balls to walk a hitter.

In 1887, the hitter's requests were no longer part of the game. And, called strikes were defined as pitches over the plate not lower than the knee or higher than the shoulder. In 1889, the concept of three strikes and four balls came into play.

In 1950, the strike zone was revised for the first time in 60 years. It was then defined as "between the batter's armpits and the top of the knees when he assumes a natural stance." This was a major change as it stripped a couple of inches from both the top and bottom of the strike zone. Major League run production increased 5% in 1950.

After shrinking the strike zone in 1950, baseball enlarged it again in 1963. But, in 1969 the strike zone was made smaller than ever. In 1988, they made the strike zone even smaller. Here's today's definition of the strike zone taken from the Official Baseball Rules (Rule 2.00):

"The strike zone is that area over the plate the upper limit of which is a horizontal line at the midpoint between the top of the shoulders the the top of the uniform pants, and the lower level is a line at the hollow beneath the knee cap."

The other element of the strike zone is that it is determined "from the batter's stance as the batter is prepared to swing at a pitched ball." When a hitter steps towards the ball, his body height contracts and the strike zone usually shrinks significantly!

Once again, baseball can make the simplist things very complicated. Ron Darling, a pitcher who won 136 games in 13 seasons, said "I can't really describe what a strike is, but I know it when I see it."