April 27, 1893: Sixty Feet, Six Inches

Amos Rusie, the Hoosier Thunderbolt

April 27, 1893: A new season opens for the National League on this Thursday. Four games are played:

* The Washington Senators beat the Baltimore Orioles, 7-5 at Boundary Field in Washington. Despite their proximity, D.C. and Charm City have still never been much of a head-to-head sports rivalry.

* The Cleveland Spiders beat the Pittsburgh Pirates, 7-2 at Exposition Park in Pittsburgh. Cleveland vs. Pittsburgh would not become a great sports rivalry until Browns vs. Steelers in the 1950s.

* The Cincinnati Reds beat the Chicago Colts, 10-1 at League Park in Cincinnati.

* The St. Louis Browns beat the Louisville Colonels, 4-2 at Sportsman's Park -- not the one that the Browns, later named the Cardinals, nor the American League team called the Browns, would later play in, but the one that would be renamed Robison Field.

* The New York Giants and the Boston Beaneaters were rained out at the 1890-1911 version of the Polo Grounds. The game was made up as part of a doubleheader on July 19. The Beaneaters won the opener, 12-6. The Giants won the nightcap, 11-3.

* And the Brooklyn Superbas and the Philadelphia Phillies were rained out at the Philadelphia Base Ball Grounds. That ballpark would burn down the next year, and be replaced by the one that was later named Baker Bowl. The game was made up on July 26. The 1st game ended in a 4-4 tie. The Phillies won the 2nd game, 6-5.

And so began a season unlike any other before it, but like every season after it. For it was on this day that what would eventually be called Major League Baseball began using the current distance from home plate to the pitcher's mound: 60 feet, 6 inches.

Sixty feet seems like a nice round number. But why the extra six inches?

The old story is that the new ruling from National League President Nicholas Young said that it should be "60 feet, 0 inches," but a ballpark surveyor misread the zero as a six. This would have explained the extra 6 inches at one ballpark, but not at all of them. The real story is a bit more complex.

Initially, the pitcher was the least important player on the field. He was supposed to toss the ball underhanded, hence "pitch" rather than "throw"; and to let the batter hit the ball, to start the action, at which point he was just another fielder. In 1859, a Brooklyn teenager named Jim Creighton found a way to make his pitches faster, said to have a "snap of the wrist," essentially inventing the fastball. In 1867, William "Candy" Cummings, inspired by how he threw clams on the Brooklyn waterfront, invented the curveball.

In 1885, the National League and the American Association, the 2 major leagues then in existence, allowed overhand pitching for the first time. In 1887, they completely abolished the practice of letting batters choose their pitch, and officially established a unified strike zone that applied to all hitters, extending from the shoulders to the knees.

But the pitching distance? The Knickerbocker Rules of 1845 specified "42 paces" from home plate to 2nd base, and from 1st base to 3rd base, which worked out to about 90 feet between the bases. But they didn't specify a pitching distance.

The Baseball Convention of 1857 set the pitching distance at 45 feet. The pitching area was marked by a 12-foot-long line, with the center of the line marked by a fixed circular iron plate. Pitchers were allowed to roam around, as long as the ball was delivered from behind the 12-foot line.

Called strikes were instituted in 1858, called balls in 1863. Also in 1863, a pitcher’s box was effectively created with the addition of a second 12-foot line, 48 feet from home base. The pitcher, therefore, had to operate within that 3-foot space from front to back. (To this day, a pitcher relieved because he's been ineffective is said to have been "knocked out of the box.")

Between 1877 and 1880, the National League batting average fell from .271 to .245, with the number of strikeouts nearly tripling thanks to an increase in pitch speed and movement. In 1881, Harry Wright, the so-called “Father of Professional Baseball” as the organizer of the 1869-70 Cincinnati Red Stockings, successfully proposed pushing back the pitching distance to 50 feet.

In 1887 came a rule that pitchers had to have their back foot in contact with the back line of the pitcher’s box, which, by this point, sat 5 1/2 feet behind the front line. So pitchers were now required to throw from a measurement of 55 feet, 6 inches from the now-square-shaped home base. (The pentagonal shape was not introduced until 1900.) There's the extra 6 inches.

And then there was Amos Rusie, an native of Mooresville, Indiana who may have been the fastest pitcher yet, hence his nickname: The Hoosier Thunderbolt. With the New York Giants, he went 29-34 with a 2.56 ERA and 341 strikeouts at age 19 in 1890. He went 33-20 with 337 K's in 1891, and 32-31 with 304 K's in 1892. But he also walked a lot of batters.

"It took a lot of pitching to strike a man out in those days," Rusie explained years later. "The foul strike rule hadn't come in. A guy had to miss three of 'em clean before he was out."

Batting averages remained low, in part because batters thought that Rusie, or someone else, might injure or even kill them with a pitch. Batting helmets were still about 60 years away, and the kind of padding that batters use today would have been considered effeminate.

So, for the 1893 season, the NL, the only remaining major league with the AA having folded after 1891, created the pitcher's mound, 15 inches high, 18 feet in diameter, with a pitcher's plate, or "rubber" 12 inches long and 4 inches wide, to be 60 feet, 6 inches from home plate.

Included in the new rules was a requirement that the pitcher must keep his rear foot on the plate through coming set and his windup -- hence, the expressions "toe the rubber" or "toe the slab." And the balk rule was clarified, to state that motions to deceive a baserunner would be declared a balk, but "when the pitcher feigns to throw the ball to a base" he must resume his former position before delivering the ball to the plate.

Another new rule standardized bats: They had to be made round and of hardwood, and no longer than 42 inches, although weights would vary.

The effects of the 1893 change were immediate. The league batting average jumped from .245 to .280. The league strikeout rate dropped from 8.4 percent to 5.2 percent.

And how did the season turn out? When it ended on September 30, the Boston Beaneaters had finished 86-43, to win their 3rd straight National League Pennant. They finished 5 games ahead of the Pittsburgh Pirates, 12 1/2 ahead of the Cleveland Spiders, 14 ahead of the Philadelphia Phillies, 19 1/2 ahead of the New York Giants, 20 1/2 ahead of both the Cincinnati Reds and the Brooklyn Bridegrooms, 26 1/2 ahead of the Baltimore Orioles, 29 ahead of the Chicago Colts, 30 1/2 ahead of the St. Louis Browns, 34 ahead of the Louisville Colonels, and 46 ahead of the Washington Senators.

And what happened to these teams in the long run? Four of them were contracted from the NL after the 1899 season. The Orioles, Senators and Spiders were dropped completely, while Barney Dreyfuss, owner of the Colonels, was allowed to buy the Pirates and combine the 2 teams, resulting in a team that won the Pennant in 1901, '02 and '03.

The Browns became the St. Louis Cardinals in 1900. The Colts became the Chicago Cubs in 1903. The Bridegrooms, so named because several players had gotten married in the 1887-88 off-season, became the Superbas in 1899, and the Dodgers in 1911. And the Beaneaters went through a few name changes before becoming the Braves in 1912.

The names "Baltimore Orioles," "St. Louis Browns" and "Washington Senators" would be used by later teams in the American League.

And, of course, some teams moved. The Boston Braves became the Milwaukee Braves in 1953, and the Atlanta Braves in 1966. The Brooklyn Dodgers became the Los Angeles Dodgers, and the New York Giants became the San Francisco Giants, both in 1957.

Did the increase to 60 and 6 affect Amos Rusie? In 1893, he was 33-21, but his strikeout total dropped to 208, still enough to lead the League. In 1894, he had his best season, going 36-13 with a 2.78 ERA and 195 strikeouts, leading the NL in all three categories, what would later be called the Triple Crown of Pitching. In 1895, he went 23-23 with 201 strikeouts.

Maybe he realized he didn't have to worry as much, and gained some confidence. Connie Mack, who played in the major leagues from 1886 to 1896, and then managed in them until 1950, saw every great fastball pitcher in that time. He batted against Cy Young, managed Rube Waddell and Lefty Grove, and managed against Walter Johnson and Bob Feller. "Rusie was the fastest, without a doubt," he said. "They looked like peas as they sailed by me. All I saw of them was what I heard when they went into the catcher’s mitt."

A dispute with Giants owner Andrew Freedman led Rusie to sit out the entire 1896 season, when he turned 25 and should have been just entering his prime. They settled their differences just before the start of the 1897 season, and he went 28-10, leading the NL with a 2.54 ERA. He went 20-11 in 1898, but, ironically, he was hit in the head by a line drive, causing him hearing damage. He also developed arm trouble. He was 27, and only appeared in 3 more major league games. He pitched until 1901, and finished with a record of 245-174, an ERA of 3.07, and 1,934 strikeouts, then a record. He lived until 1942, and was elected to the Hall of Fame in 1977.

But other pitchers were affected by the longer distance. James "Pud" Galvin and Mickey Welch both retired after the 1892 season. Galvin, winner of 361 games, was 36 years old, but Welch, winner of 307, was only 33. Tim Keefe went 323-218 before the move, but 10-7 in 1893, with his ERA increasing from 2.36 to 4.40, and he retired at 36. John Clarkson went 304-151 before the move, but went just 16-17 in 1893 and 8-10 in 1894, his ERA going up from 2.48 to 4.45 and 4.42. He was only 33, but he retired after the 1894 season.

Before the 1969 season, Major League Baseball reacted to The Year of the Pitcher by changing some rules. The strike zone was lowered a little, and the pitcher's mound was lowered from 15 inches at its crest to 10 inches. Scoring rose throughout baseball.