This Month In Baseball
July 1877
Edition 7.5
The Birth Of The Strike Out
Game Evolves As St. Louis Pitcher Leads Way
Obviously the birth of a new league has come a long way as far as following and financial gain. Along the way, teams have become more competitive then ever and have found revolutionary ways to play the game at the highest level.
In the past the pitchers job was to throw a ball that the batter could surely hit, even having the hitter call what type of pitch he wanted thrown. As the game rose the stakes of each game, the pitcher often wanted nothing to do with giving the hitter any sort of advantage. Even more modern thinking was the complete deception of the hitter to the point where he swings and misses and the count moves to the defenses favor, or even better a strike out is recorded.
Frank Fleet came into the league in 1871 just trying to survive. He took root in Chicago with Charlie Pabor and his powerful club. In 1873 he was given his chance and threw over 258 innings of good work as the club won the championship. In 1875 Fleet was taken by the St. Louis Cardinals in the expansion draft and from the start he became the best arm in the organization. With a poor club Fleet has lost 95 games in his career but he has become the master of deception and the trend maker when it comes to the strikeout.
No one has struck out more batters in the history of the league then Fleet who has lead the league in all the past three seasons including a record total of 101 last year. He average 4 K per nine innings, an incredible feet that many other pitchers in the league took notice of. Soon the strikeout became more of a weapon and the likes of Cherokee Fisher and Cy Bentley honed their game to get the swing and the miss.
There are those minds of the old thinking that say a strikeout is not how the game was indented to be played and consider it unsportsmanlike. These voices however are not a deterrent for the biggest stars of the game who care about outs, and the safest out is the one where the ball is never put into play.
There is no doubt that the strikeout is here to stay.
