Talk:Baseball rules

North American focus

This page says that "Baseball around the world" follows certain rules, but it only seems to discuss North American baseball. I'm curious as to what rules are used in Japan. I know, for example, that in Japan they always have designated hitters (like in the AL of american MLB), and that they only play a fixed number of extra innings (6, I think, though I may be wrong). I'm not that familiar with Japanese baseball rules, but perhaps someone could add this information, or at least revise this article to point out that there are other sets of baseball rules in use around the world.\ GJL 02:26, Oct 25, 2004 (UTC)

How's that? Feel free to edit further. I think the two areas you mentioned are the only significant differences in Japanese baseball. --Locarno 14:01, 25 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Balls and strikes (baseball)

I came across the article Balls and strikes (baseball) earlier, and it seems it would be better suited as a sub-category on this article instead. So I have proposed a merger on this page, and the prior, suggesting the info on that page be merged somehow into this one. Thoughts? Objections? raven1977 (talk) 04:33, 2 October 2008 (UTC)

I haven't seen any response on this yet, but I was looking at this article to see where the contents of the other article would go. I would think Baseball_rules#Batting would be a good place for it. I'll be glad to do this content merge myself, by the way. I just don't want to go to the effort if there are strong objections to it. raven1977 (talk) 17:38, 11 October 2008 (UTC)

"Baseball rules" ?

This article is mostly NOT about the rules of baseball. It's about typical strategies and other points, which partly result from the rules. Take this snippet from "The Infielders":

"The first baseman's job consists largely of making plays at first base on ground balls hit to the other infielders. When an infielder picks up a ball from the ground hit by the batter, he must throw it to the first baseman who must catch the ball and maintain contact with the base before the batter gets to it for the batter to be out. The need to do this quickly often requires the first baseman to stretch one of his legs to touch first base while catching the ball simultaneously. The first baseman must be able to catch the ball very well and usually wears a specially designed mitt. The first baseman fields balls hit near first base. The first baseman also has to receive throws from the pitcher in order to tag runners out who have reached base safely. The position is less physically challenging than the other positions, but there is still a lot of skill involved. Infielders don't always make good throws to first base, so it is the first baseman's job to field any ball thrown toward him cleanly. Older players who can no longer fulfill the demands of their original positions also often become first basemen."

"must throw it to the first baseman" and "must catch the ball" are NOT rules of the game. "Must throw it to the first baseman" seems not even to be necessarily the right strategy - with a single runner on third base, throwing to the pitcher is surely more likely?

The rest is all interesting material about the role of the first baseman, but not part of the rules of the game.

Suggestion: delete nothing, but shuffle material (probably into at least two different articles) so that the rules and common strategies are dealt with separately. PeterBiddlecombe (talk) 11:18, 6 April 2009 (UTC)

Simplified Rules

A couple of years ago there was a page called "Simplified Baseball Rules". I worked with a fellow from another country who became a friend of mine and wanted to learn the rules of baseball. This 'simplified Rules' page was the perfect resource for him. Now, there is another friend in the same situation, but I look and see it has been aggregated into this all-too-complicated page that is completely unaccessible to someone who is first coming into contact with the game. "Simplified Baseball Rules" definitely has a place and should be dis aggregated. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.202.248.148 (talk) 07:04, 29 July 2009 (UTC)

I agree with you. The funny thing is that THIS page is the one that shouldn't exist. The only people who would enjoy reading this or could get anything from it are people who already have a pretty good understanding of the rules, and are either A: coming around to make sure they can't find a mistake, or B: looking for a really specific rule that they may as well be looking in the MLB rulebook to find. This page is basically an attempt to give a less complete version of the MLB rulebook, and add some strategies, and sometimes incorrectly state the strategies as a rule. The simplified version of the rules should be this page. This is a perfect example of pedantry making a page completely useless to those who might need it! Dancindazed (talk) 22:21, 21 September 2011 (UTC)

Forfeit rules

In the middle of the pitching section, someone (revision 307263384 by 67.249.244.64 (talk)) added this fragment:

If a team is to forfeit with three outs or less remaining the pitcher must continue to pitch the remainder of the game, to accumulate a fully compromised game

I don't quite understand what this is trying to say (what does "accumulate a fully compromised game" mean?), but I'm pretty sure that whatever it's saying is wrong.

The forfeit rules (4.16-4.18) of the OBR say nothing about forcing a team to complete a game after forfeiting.

Three of the five MLB forfeits since 1970 occurred with fewer than 3 outs remaining, and the pitcher was not forced to continue pitching.

Finally, how could such a rule be enforced if it did exist? All modern forfeits are due either to the game becoming unplayable, or to refusal of one team to play as a protest. In early days, there were a few forfeits because a team could no longer field 9 players, but again, if they're forfeiting because they don't have a pitcher, how could the pitcher be forced to complete the game?

I skimmed through the OBR for anything remotely similar, thinking it was just a poorly-articulated (and probably truncated--notice the missing period) attempt to say something true and relevant, but finally gave up and deleted it. (And nobody forced me to pitch the last 3 innings of the article.) --166.134.228.43 (talk) 08:10, 1 May 2010 (UTC)

"Tie goes to the runner"

Didn't see "tie goes to the runner" mentioned—seems like a basic addition (even if it's to say it isn't a rule, though commonly thought to be one).  czar ♔ 13:47, 12 October 2013 (UTC)

remember the Detroit Tigers of 1968

Notice this comment about shortstop:

"This position is the most demanding defensively, so a good shortstop doesn't need to necessarily be a good batter."

In 1968, Ray Oyler, regarded as a slick fielder but not a good hitter, was playing shortstop for the Tigers. Late in the season, the manager (Mayo Smith), having 4 good-hitting outfielders, experimented with one of those outfielders (Mickey Stanley) switched to shortstop. Ray Oyler remained available if needed in the game for defensive purposes. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 128.63.16.20 (talk) 16:18, 29 April 2015 (UTC)

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Equipment

The article would be better if it has some explicit information about the requirements for the playing field, bat, gloves and ball. Presumably the dimensions and materials of these are subject to regulation. Qemist (talk) 07:53, 11 April 2017 (UTC)

Merger proposal

I propose that Safe (baseball) be merged (or possibly blank-and-redirected) into Baseball rules. "Safe" is already described on this page, and does not need a page to itself. Jarmihi_GOCE (talk) 15:45, 6 July 2017 (UTC)

Oppose: my view is that there is enough to be said about the art and culture of calling safe which wouldn't fit within a rules-focussed page. So, I'd improve rather than merge. Klbrain (talk) 08:46, 6 November 2018 (UTC)

Pace of the game

New rules will go into effect this upcoming MLB season. I know this page isn't MLB-specific, but it may be worthing adding to the "Pace of the game" section.Pistongrinder (talk) 19:25, 19 February 2018 (UTC)

Substitute Runner

Can a batsman that hits the ball and makes it to first base. Call a substitute Runner to run the other bases? 111.220.239.121 (talk) 22:01, 25 April 2022 (UTC)