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Where Did 3 Strikes Come From?

Article Date: April 4, 2019

Three strikes and you're out. Four balls, take your base. These were probably the first rules you learned when you sat down to watch a baseball game or picked up a bat for the first time. The concepts even extend beyond the baseball field. You probably got "three strikes" in kindergarten if you weren't sharing the wooden building blocks adequately. At this point, it seems so intuitive that it's hard to imagine any other way of going about things.

For some good humor, checkout the Ridiculous 6 take on the creation of baseball:

 

But in reality, the first people who played baseball weren't like you opening Settlers of Catan for the first time with your friends. They didn't have a manual with already-finalized rules. They made them up and figured them out as they went along -- including how many strikes made an out and how many balls made a walk.

In 1845, the Knickerbocker Baseball Club set down 20 rules that are considered the foundation of baseball as we know it. Now, not all these rules were original, as baseball had been played in some form or another for years prior, but the Knickerbocker Rules put them... Read the full article