The Epistemology of The Strikezone

Major League Baseball is a sport steeped traditional practices. Other professional sports associations routinely alter the rules of their game to facilitate more interesting play, protect players or both. For instance to start the 1998/99 season, the National Hockey Association altered their rules requiring more space behind the goal to create more scoring chances. Three years ago the National Basketball Association moved its three point line closer to the basket to encourage more perimeter shots, and the National Football League, routinely adjusts rules governing pass coverage, and hits to the quarter-back to allow for a more open, pass oriented game.

In contrast professional baseball stands alone in the deference it pays to its rules. The baseball rulebook is considered with close to the same respect paid great works of western civilization. Baseball enthusiasts often refer to the wisdom of Abner Doubleday, and the near perfect set of rules he recorded for posterity in the summer of 1839. The fact that Doubleday may never have seen a baseball game, and that professional game was actually shaped by the play of the New York Knickerbockers in the late 1840’s does not diminish the power of the myth.[1] Like the US Constitution or the Holy Bible, Baseball’s rulebook is often considered to be a near perfect document. However, sometimes, even the rules of baseball require interpretation to fit the complexities of the modern game. These interpretations are presided over by a ‘Rules Committee’. Like the Hebrew Talmud, changes to the rule book are always merely ‘Case Book Interpretations’, which attempt to explain the meaning of the original text. When voted on by a majority of the rules committee, and ratified by the player’s association, these case book interpretations are woven into the rule book and therefore our understanding of the game.