Clipping:A discourse on fair-foul batting
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| Date | Saturday, December 12, 1874 |
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| Text | A feature of the season’s play has been the success attendant upon the style of batting technically known as “fair-foul” hitting; that is, the hitting of balls which rebound from the bat so close to the home base and which take such a divergent angle from that of ordinary hits–to “foul”–as to render it almost impossible for any infielder to get at them in time to cut off the striker at first base. By players not well versed in what constitutes scientific batting, fair-foul batting is called “baby batting.” This comes from questionable consistency from batsmen who pride themselves on heavy hitting, a style of batting any player in the fraternity can readily excel in. Next to calculating the force of the stroke of your bat so nicely as to sent the ball to any part of the field you regard as safe, the most difficult style of hitting is that of fair-foul batting. It should be borne in mind, in estimating the skill of the batsman, that the style of hitting is the most skillful, and therefore the most “scientific,” which yields as its certain result the easy occupancy of first base without given any fielder a chance to throw or catch the batsman out. This is what “fair foul” batting does under the rule of nine men in the field. To the ordinary looker-on, a long, high hit to the outer field seems quite a brilliant thing to do in comparison to the short, quick hit of the ball, which sends it rebounding, from fair ground to foul, about twenty or thirty yards out of the reach of any fielder. But the former is a hit any muscular novice in the game can readily succeed in making; while the other is one that none but practised batsmen, possessing keen sight and plenty of nerve, can excel in. While it remains the primary object of skillful batsmen to wield he ash so as to secure first base by the least exertion and with the most surety, fair-foul hitting will ever be the skillful feature of batting; and it must prevail until the adoption of the ten-men rule affords the field an opportunity to cover the fair-foul part of the field more effectually than can now be done. There is one amendment of the rules which is applicable to this fair-foul style of batting, which seems necessary, if only to render the decisions of the umpire, given on fair foul hits, more correct and satisfactory than they were last season; and that is, the introduction of a rule which shall require the ball to be struck in front of the line of the striker’s position, or order to be fair. This would considerably reduce the number of opportunities for the least skillful of fair-foul hits, and remove those doubtful cases in which the ball so frequently strikes the front part of the home base as to render it difficult for an umpire to decide on the question of fair or foul ball. In doing this, too, it would be well also to place the home base, not as the other bases are, with their centres on the corner of the base lines, but with the out lines of the home base resting on the foul ball lines. This would be advantageous, however, only in case the previous amendment should not be adopted. |
| Source | New York Clipper |
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| Submitted by | Richard Hershberger |
| Origin | Initial Hershberger Clippings |
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