As I sat to write this post, it was one of my closest friends in the entire world’s birthday. Well, it was yesterday, technically. It is after midnight — my typical writing hours. Earlier in the evening, as in a maybe an hour ago, because I must truly be a creature of the night in all facets, I baked her a cake from scratch. Modern cake mixes are really good — so good, in fact, that the effort to make a cake from scratch is not always worth committing to compared to the finished products. There is something to making something yourself, though, isn’t there? Carefully selecting each ingredient, meticulously measuring, and scraping down the bowl, every bit of effort a testament to your love and care. It is just a nice thing, I think. Sometimes the extra effort makes the results all the more satisfying.
If I had to guess the highest effort play to get on base, I’d probably say something like running out an infield single. That just seems exhausting. The most sacrificial though has to be getting hit by a pitch — I personally would be much more willing to do the former. Often times a hit by pitch is a mere accident, the slip of the fingers from a pitcher attempting a motion that requires perfection in every detail. Sometimes though, it seems to be a skill of the batter, someone with an uncanny ability to attract baseballs to his person in such a way as to avoid injury. Some batters turned “taking one for the team” into a philosophy.
It was not always this way either, though it was a rule that was quickly adopted. Prior to 1887 a hit batsman was not granted a free base, the pitch was simply considered a ball. In 1887 rule 5.05(b) was established, stating that a batter becomes a baserunner and is awarded first base when he or his equipment (except for his bat):
is touched by a pitched ball outside the strike zone,
and he attempts to avoid it (or had no opportunity to avoid it),
and he did not swing at the pitch.
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