Page 6 - My FlipBook

blasts? But the biggest question focused on baseball’s future. In a sport where fans
loved the home run, did MLB want the long-ball trend to continue?

THE REIGN AND FALL OF THE DEAD BALL

Baseball wasn’t always centered on hitting the ball over the fence. In the early 1900s,

MLB games were built around a strategy that modern fans call small ball. Players
didn’t swing for the fences. They tried to get on base. They bunted and focused on
making contact with the ball. The game was about methodically moving runners

from base to base, not bringing them all home with one swing of the bat.
During the dead ball era, from 1900 to 1919, the home run was a novelty, an
afterthought. In both 1905 and 1909, not a single MLB player reached double

digits in home runs. Baseball historians have several theories about why the home
run was such a rarity for the first two decades of the century. During that time,
MLB allowed pitchers to throw spitballs. Pitchers doctored balls with sticky

substances to affect their flight, possibly leading to low home run totals. The spitball
was banned in 1920 and home run

totals surged. Others point to changes
in ballpark sizes, pitching strategies,
or how baseballs were manufactured.

Probably all of these contributed to
the low home run totals.

Historians agree, however, about
the player who was most responsible
for ending the dead ball era. It was

a young pitcher-turned-slugger who
During the dead ball era, many hitters choked up on the bat went on to rewrite baseball’s record
to help make contact with the ball, reducing the power of
their swings. books. It was Babe Ruth.

8 It’s Outta Here!