Question about dead ball era catchers

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Posted By: jay behrens

Strike zone, by the book, is from the letters to the knees. As eevryone knows, you always hear complaints about the lack of umps calling a high strike these days.

My guess, just from seeing lots of footage from from the deadball era, is that the majority of balls high in the strike zone. Many players back then choked up on the bat, and as big as those bats were, this is not conducive to swinging at low balls, but helps a lot with higher pitches.

I've also seen game footage of MAtty and Walter Johnson, and nothing I saw there would strike fear into the hearts of hitters today as far as speed is concerned. This is a big reason why pitchers tend to burn out earlier today, they are always throwing as hard as they can. Back then, as someone else pointed out, they only 'pitched in a pinch' when needed.

Jay