An old baseball cliche: baseball is a game of inches.
For the 2023 season maybe Major League Baseball (MLB) should have moved second base completely into the 90 foot square, where it belongs and where almost everybody thinks it is, rather than increasing the size of the bases from 15 inch squares to 18 inch squares.
And put a 15 inch square base in foul territory next to first base for the batter/runner. And make the pitcher's release point the middle of the 90 foot square, about 63 feet from the back of home plate. But I digress ... a lot.
Bigger bases means more than stolen bases. Wednesday, February 1, 2023
One of three rule changes for the 2023 season:
Base Sizes (2023 rule change) MLB.com
Definition
One of the rule changes covers the size of the bases, which traditionally have been 15 inches square, but will now be 18 inches square. Home plate remains unchanged....
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Some baseball distances can be different from those of normal human beings. If you are sitting across the table from someone, you would judge the distance between you as the distance between your faces. But using baseball logic, it would be the distance between your face and the back of the other person's head. The two baseball examples:
1. 60 feet, 6 inches from the pitcher's rubber to home plate. It's actually that minus the 17 inches from the front of home plate to the back.
2. 90 feet from home plate to first base. That's to the outfield side of the base. Through 2022 we should subtract the 15 inch size of the base. Starting in 2023, we should subtract the 18 inches...
A squared + B squared = C squared. Then take the square root of C.
https://content.mlb.com/documents/2/2/4/305750224/2019_Official_Baseball_Rules_FINAL_.pdf
Rule 2.01
2.00 –THE PLAYING FIELD
2.01 Layout of the Field
The infield shall be a 90-foot square...
When location of home base is determined, with a steel tape measure 127 feet, 33
⁄8 inches in desired direction to establish second
base...
The distance between first base and third base is 127 feet, 33
⁄8 inches...
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Click link for MLB diagram 2.
90 feet to the back of first and third bases is not explicitly shown but is implied. Only 25% of second base is within the 90-foot square. Hey, baseball is ancient. We're lucky we have anything.
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Click the link above to view the current diagram that defines the infield.
.28 of a 12 inch foot is 3.36 inches.
But the diagram clearly shows second base in an odd illogical location with only 25% within the prescribed "90-foot square". Completely within the "90-foot square": first base, second base, home plate.
The Evolution of the Baseball Diamond: Perfection Came Slowly
This article was written by Tom Shieber
This article was published in SABR 50 at 50
This article was originally published in SABR’s Baseball Research Journal, Vol. 23 (1994).
Red Smith once wrote: “Ninety feet between bases is the nearest to perfection that man has yet achieved.” ...
the diagram that accompanied the rules in the 1887 Spalding guide shows the bases positioned as they are today, neatly nestled in their respective corners of the 90-foot infield square (see Plate L).36
Plate L
“Correct Diagram of a Ball Ground.” Spalding’s Base Ball Guide for 1887 (Chicago: A.G. Spalding & Bros., 1887), 4.
Interestingly, it was the diagram, not the wording of the rule, that prevailed. To this day, second base remains “upon its corner of the infield,” while the first and third bases lie wholly within the diamond. This rather strange positioning of second base is often overlooked in modern-day representations of the baseball diamond. Even the cover of The Macmillan Baseball Encyclopedia shows an infield diamond with second base erroneously placed wholly within the 90-foot infield square. Modern day rules avoid any possible conflict between the written rule and the diagram by essentially stating that the diamond should be laid out so that it looks like the diagram supplied.
...
Former baseball commissioner Ford Frick (1951-1965) ...
Like Red Smith, Frick describes the baseball diamond as being “perfect.” It is the awkward-looking home plate, the strange positioning of the second base, and the first and third bases nestled snugly in their corners of this 90-foot square that we embrace as perfection.
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Baseball is a game of inches. Argh.
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