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Baseball

Auggie

(33,394 posts)

1. The diagonal was invented to make balls and strikes more visible to umpires and pitchers

Reply to retread (Original post)

Thu Jul 2, 2026, 05:54 PM

Yesterday

From MLB:

The irregular pentagon shape of home base that we know today was developed by Robert Keating and introduced as a viable option for the 1900/1901 baseball season. The rear corners, which extend to a point, are made to be perpendicular to the first and third base lines. The biggest advantage of the new shape was that it made the edges of the strike zone more visible to pitchers and umpires and, therefore, improved the consistency of calling strikes.

https://www.mlb.com/news/why-is-home-plate-shaped-different-than-other-bases-c177695752

I find it hard to believe that a thrown ball would break in or out of a 16" square box at of 85-95 MPH. The 2-D plane is how umpires have called pitches for over 100 years. It works fine.

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SCantiGOP

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Highlight:

There are things bugging me about the "new" automated strike zone [View all] retread Yesterday OP

The diagonal was invented to make balls and strikes more visible to umpires and pitchers Auggie Yesterday #1

They DID experiment with a 3d automated strike zone in the Minor Leagues. retread 16 hrs ago #2

Well yeah, it's hard enough to make contact as it is Auggie 12 hrs ago #3