History of Playing and Scoring Rules

The rules of baseball have undergone many changes in the last 150 years or so.  These 
changes include scoring rules as well as playing rules.  There have been attempts to 
document these changes, but most are incomplete and quickly become out of date.

Stew Thornley has undertaken the most comprehensive and properly documented compilation 
of these changes that has ever been done.  He has graciously agreed to share the 
results of his labor with Retrosheet by posting the three files linked below.

A key feature of Stew's contribution is that he plans to continue his work and each file
will be clearly marked at the top with the date of the latest revision.  The rules 
summaries below are divided into pre-1950 and 1950-present. This division is highly 
significant since 1950 is the year that a complete reorganization of the rule book 
took place.

We are very grateful to Stew for his generosity in sharing his work.

Playing Rules pre-1950
Scoring Rules pre-1950
Playing Rules 1950-present
Scoring Rules 1950-present
Rules Changes Summary