Rule Changes Hardly Unprecedented in the History of MLB and Sports

If you’re a fan of Major League Baseball, you’re no doubt aware of the significant rule changes that went into effect this year — namely, the pitch timer, defensive shift limits and bigger bases.

Most fans, and the current crop of MLB players, have never seen changes to a sport of this magnitude in their lifetimes.

But that hardly means that the changes are unprecedented. A look at history, in fact, shows that the measures taken to improve baseball have many parallels to the ones used in the other major North American professional sports (National Basketball Association, National Football League and National Hockey League).

The changes discussed here can be grouped into three categories: pace of play, physical dimensions and defensive limitations.

PACE OF PLAY

MLB: The pitch timer — 15 seconds with the bases empty, 20 with runners on — is an effort to reduce dead time. You can go back to 1901, the first season of MLB’S Modern Era, to see the first such effort. That year the rule was passed to make foul balls a strike, except for those caught on the fly, until the batter has two strikes. Before that, batters could foul off pitch after pitch without any consequence.

In 1909, a rule was created that pitchers must face a minimum of one batter. It became necessary because managers would announce they were inserting one pitcher, who slowly went to the mound and threw a few warmup pitches, while the pitcher they actually wanted to use warmed up in foul territory. Then just three years ago, MLB imposed a three-batter minimum to reduce pitching changes and dead time.

Other very recent changes to improve the pace of play are the batter’s box rule requiring hitters to keep one foot in the box during their time at bat, the installation of timers to measure the break between innings and pitching changes, and the introduction of mound visit limits.

NBA: The biggest and most obvious change came in 1954, when the 24-second shot clock was created that immediately sent scoring and game tempo up dramatically.

Five years ago, the NBA enacted a series of changes aimed at improving pace, including reducing the shot clock to 14 seconds after an offensive rebound of a missed shot; reducing the number of team timeouts and limiting when they can be used; initiating delay-of-game violations for free throw shooters who walk behind the three-point line between attempts and teams that aren’t ready to resume play when halftime ends; and starting the 15-minute halftime clock immediately when the second quarter ends.

Like the NBA, a clock — in addition to the actual game clock — was introduced to speed things up. The play clock began in 1976 as a 30-second clock, though it has since increased to 40.

Starting in 2014, the NFL kept the clock rolling after a quarterback was sacked. Three years later, it reduced commercial breaks from five or six per quarter to four per quarter, though the breaks themselves did increase by 30 seconds. The league also standardized the re-start of the clock after a runner goes out of bounds, as well as the length of halftime.

NHL: In 1928 when it was just in its 12th year, the NHL began imposing delayof-game penalties to players who pass the puck back into their defensive zone. Such penalties today are implemented for many offenses, including shooting the puck out of the

NFL:

playing area from the defensive zone and intentionally keeping the puck behind the net for more than a minute.

In 1943, the red line at center ice was introduced in an effort to improve the pace of action by reducing offsides penalties. And in 1975, the NHL began allowing only the captain and his assistants the right to argue with referees, in order to prevent delays caused by constant player protests. But the biggest pace change came in 2002 when “hurry-up” face-off and line-change rules went into effect. These meant that from the time the whistle blew to stop play, teams had 18 seconds to get into position before the puck was dropped. Game times were reduced by an average of 15 minutes immediately.

PHYSICAL DIMENSIONS

MLB: Bigger bases, which have gone from 15 to 18 inches square, are mainly a safety issue, giving players more room to operate around the bases. This is especially true at first base, where the fielder will have more room to make the catch while avoiding the charging runner. So in that regard they are comparable to the introduction of helmets in baseball, football and hockey. But they can also be compared to past alterations in MLB’S dimensions.

The minimum home run distance was initially set at 250 feet in 1925, then increased in 1959 to 325 feet down the lines and 400 feet to center field. Also, the mound height was limited to 15 inches in 1903 and then further lowered to 10 inches in 1969 (a change I remember well from my youth).

And while the strike zone is obviously not a physical object, the way it is called has been adjusted many times in MLB history. It was shrunk in 1950 (armpits to top of knees), expanded in 1963 (top of shoulders to the knees), shrunk again in 1969 (armpits to knees again), clarified in 1988 (midpoint between shoulders and top of the uniform pants to the top of the knees), and expanded slightly again in 1996 (midpoint between shoulders and top of pants to a point just below the kneecap).

NBA: As a way to curb the impact of dominant big men such as George Mikan and Wilt Chamberlain, the league twice expanded its lane in its early years — from six to 12 feet in 1951, and from 12 to 16 feet in 1964.

And the sport was forever changed with the addition of the three-point line in 1979. The NBA experimented with moving the line closer to the basket for a few years in the mid-1990s before moving it back to its original distance in 1997.

NFL: In 1933, when the league was 14 years old, the NFL moved the goal posts from the back of the end zone to the goal line to increase the number of field goals and decrease the number of tie games. The posts were then moved back in 1974, as part of a wider effort to create more touchdowns.

Two years before that in 1972, the league moved the hashmarks to their present location of 70 feet, 9 inches from the sidelines in order to boost offenses by widening the short side of the field.

NHL: The previously-mentioned creation of the red line in 1943 was a physical change that dramatically improved the action and scoring and brought about the modern game. The NHL moved its goal lines, blue lines and defensive face-off circles in 1990 to give players more room to operate, and to increase offense.

As part of a variety of rule changes aimed at speed and excitement, the league in 2005 again moved the goal lines and blue lines — while no longer utilizing the red line to keep teams from making twoline passes. This reduced the neutral zone to 50 feet, and again provided more room to create offense. The NHL has also used many net designs to address player safety over the years.

DEFENSIVE LIMITATIONS

MLB: This year the league has mandated that a minimum of two infielders must be on each side of second base, with cleats in the dirt as the pitch is thrown. MLB has never before put limits on defensive shifts, but this change is in keeping with previous efforts through the years to improve the balance between offense and defense.

The pitching mound and strike zone changes in

1969, and the

1973 adoption of the designated hitter rule in the American

League — which was permanently extended to the

National League last year — are certainly the biggest changes regarding that balance. Other major changes included the 1920 outlawing of the spitball, the arrival of the threebatter minimum

100 years later, and last year’s rule that provided roster limits on the number of pitchers a team can carry.

NBA: The league had made previous efforts to increase its enforcement of the hand-checking rule that polices aggressive defense, such as the use of hands to push, hold, slap and slash the offensive player. But the real game-changer came in the 2004-05 season, when a measure to strictly forbid hand-checking was passed. Fifteen years earlier the NBA also enacted a flagrant foul penalty to reduce the amount of physicality by defenders.

Back in the 1940s, the league banned zone defense but began allowing it in 2001 in order to increase ball movement. That same year the NBA instituted a three-second limit for defenders to stand in the lane.

NFL: Multiple efforts have been made by the league over the years to protect the quarterback. These ranged from the early adoption of a roughing-the-passer penalty to a 2018 rule that a defender could not land with his full body weight on the QB or hit him in the head or below the knees.

The NFL began noticeably opening up its passing game and improving offense in general during the 1970s. In 1974, punting teams were prohibited from moving downfield until after the ball was kicked, penalties on offensive players for holding, illegal use of the hands and tripping were reduced from 15 yards to 10, and defenders were limited to chucking receivers only once after the receiver had gone three yards downfield. Starting in 1978, defenders were allowed to make contact with a receiver within only five yards of the line of scrimmage.

NHL: The legalization of forward passing in the 1920s was an amplification of offense and limitation of defense. The icing rule — which stops play and forces a face-off when teams with a lead try to run out the clock by shooting the puck from their defensive zone all the way past the goal line — began in 1937.

Much more recently (in 2005) the NHL adopted a “zero tolerance” stance on all obstruction penalties, such as interference, holding and hooking, to further allow the league’s best players to display their talents.