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Which baseball rules were established by the Knickerbocker Rules?
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History of baseball
Giants legend Barry Bonds hitting his record-setting 756th career home run, August 7, 2007.
The Knickerbocker Rules, adopted in September 1845 by the Knickerbocker Base Ball Club, introduced foundational changes that helped shape modern baseball.
Key rules and innovations established by these regulations include:
- Tagging Out Runners: A major innovation was the requirement to tag a base runner with the ball to retire them, replacing the previous practice of hitting the runner with a thrown ball.12
- Use of a Hard Ball: By eliminating the need to hit runners with the ball, the rules allowed for the substitution of a harder ball, which facilitated a larger-scale game.13
- Base Distance: Alexander Joy Cartwright is generally credited with fixing the distance between bases at 90 feet (27.4 metres).1
While these 1845 rules were partially derived from earlier games like rounders, they established the "New York game," which eventually became the predominant version of baseball following the American Civil War.23