The ‘Bound Game’ versus the ‘Fly Game’: A Far-Reaching Controversy at Organized Baseball’s Beginnings

This article focuses on the NABBP’s initial years during which the principal issue was the “bound game” versus “fly game,” the former being the existing method of play. As Marshall Wright noted in his history of the NABBP, “no rule was more hotly contested than the bound out rule.”2 Robert Tholkes called it “the most contentious rules issue of the [1857–65] period.”3 Richard Hershberger went further, describing it as “the most contentious rules argument in the history of the game [and] the strangest.”4 Not surprisingly, as Warren Goldstein noted, “this issue attracted a huge amount of attention in the sporting press.”5 And yet, oddly, the episode is virtually unknown to the modern baseball community.

Under the bound game, a batter could be put out if his batted ball was caught on the first bound (bounce), as well as being caught on the fly, i.e., before it first struck the ground. Under the fly game, only a fly catch counted as an out. The issue was debated and voted on at most annual NABBP conventions until the bound out (on fair balls only) was finally eliminated in December of 1864. This, of course, was a critical step in the evolution toward modern baseball. This article summarizes that history, then empirically analyzes the difference between the two rules in terms their effect on runs scored. In other words, how important was the change from the bound game to the fly game in terms of game outcomes?

Regarding the NABBP’s name, in 1858 “it went without saying” that the involved players were amateurs and so the word was not needed in the title. After all, professional play had not yet evolved, and the NABBP did not take its first step toward formally “outlawing” compensation for players until its March 1859 convention.6 Also, the NABBP was hardly national in scope, as both contemporary observers and modern historians have pointed out. The initial membership consisted only of clubs from the New York metropolitan area and its geographic footprint did not extend much further during its first several years. Last, strictly speaking, the membership consisted of clubs, not individual players. But at that time clubs consisted only of players; there were no stockholders, managers, administrators or other “hired hands” involved in club operation. As Ryczek put it: “players and management…were generally one and the same.”7 Member-players organized, “financed” (via dues), and operated the clubs, and so the distinction was irrelevant for naming the organization. For example, today professional baseball clubs include many non-playing “members” (employees).

BACKGROUND

At the NABBP’s founding, the contemporary and somewhat informal baseball rules stipulated that a batter could be put out if his batted ball was caught on the first bound as well as on the fly. This rule was included in an early set written down in 1845 by the Knickerbocker Club of New York to guide intramural play among club members. They were concise, containing only 14 specific rules, called “sections,” on a single page.8 Section 6 reads as follows: “A ball being struck or tipped, and caught either flying or on the first bound, is a hand out.”9 David Block observes that the bound out is “usually thought of as a Knickerbocker innovation [although] the rule may actually have been a legacy of earlier pastimes.”10 By the mid-1850s, the Knickerbocker rules had become a model for other clubs playing the New York game. For example, an 1856 New York Clipper article lists 17 rules of baseball, including a Rule 6 describing the bound out that was worded identically to Section 6 of the Knickerbocker rules.11 At its initial meeting, the NABBP adopted by majority vote a set of playing rules largely based on the Knickerbocker rules including the bound out, although the club no longer supported it.12

Catching on the bound was usually the easier play, requiring less athletic skill. This was particularly true in this pre-glove era when balls were caught bare-handed. Outfielders could stay back and catch short hits over the infield on the first bounce rather than running in and attempting a risky bare-handed fly catch, risky regarding both a successful catch and possible injury. Infielders catching a proverbial one-hopper immediately would record an out (e.g.) without having to throw to first base and without the first baseman having to make a bare-handed catch, both opportunities for errors. Of course, athletic plays are certainly possible on balls that have bounced once in order to catch them before a second bounce occurs. However, overall it was generally understood that the fly game was significantly more demanding.13

Accordingly, the game’s aficionados came to regard the bound game as less “manly.” This was an issue in the early days of baseball because of sensitivity regarding criticisms about adults playing a child’s school-yard game. These could be countered if baseball was perceived as athletically challenging and “scientific,” i.e., requiring high skill levels and strategy. The various clubs had differing average skill levels, with less skilled players attracted to so-called “muffin” clubs that favored the bound game precisely because it was easier. It also “leveled the playing field” between clubs with different skill levels, to the advantage of weaker clubs. Thus, tensions arose between these clubs and those comprised of more skillful players who generally preferred the fly game that maximized the advantage of their athletic ability.

Aside from the fly game’s increased difficulty, proponents of the bound game were concerned that the fly game gave an advantage to the batter that might bring forth an undesirable cascade of other rule changes to offset that advantage.14 Also, as noted above, bound catches decreased the likelihood of injury to players’ hands in this pre-glove era. Another factor was that easier outs meant fewer errors and less scoring and therefore shorter games, which was more attractive both for players and for working fans with limited time to spend at the ball park. And in this era before stadium lights, it meant fewer games cut short because of darkness.

BASEBALL CONVENTIONS OF 1857–6415

The first convention of baseball clubs was held in New York City in two sessions on January 22 and February 25 of 1857, although the NABBP was not founded until the next convention a year later. Sixteen clubs were involved in at least one session of the 1857 meetings, 14 in both, all from the New York metro area. Conventions continued to be held in New York throughout the Association’s first decade. At the January 1857 meeting a Rules Committee was appointed to formulate proposals for playing rules to be presented to the general body for discussion and approval by majority vote. This established the modus operandi for determining rule changes that continued throughout the NABBP’s history: the Rules Committee met prior to the convention to develop rule change proposals to be acted upon at the convention. All matches between NABBP clubs were required to use the rules thereby established, although for particular games occasional departures were allowed on an ad hoc basis by mutual agreement of the involved clubs. Intramural contests among members within clubs were not subject to the requirement.

Clubs were allowed two delegates to the conventions and all those present were required to vote.16 Thus the number of votes cast on a particular issue could exceed the number of clubs represented. Some were concerned that delegate selection biased voting against the fly game. Inter-club matches where the rules were required were between the “first nines” consisting of each club’s best players, while the usually many more members who were less skilled mainly played less formal intramural games. However, delegates did not need to be from a club’s first nine and often included “muffin” members. It was argued that these delegates voted with their intramural games in mind, expressing their preference for the easier bound game.17

The bound game versus fly game question was an issue at each annual convention until the bound out on fair balls was finally eliminated at the convention of December 1864, first taking effect for the 1865 season. The bound elimination votes at each of the nine conventions from 1857 to 1864 are summarized in Table 1. And the issue was no doubt an informal subject of debate during the years prior to the NABBP’s formation.

 

 

At the initial 1857 convention a set of playing rules was adopted, essentially a modified version of the Knickerbocker rules that included the bound out, as noted above. The bound vs fly game issue was “hugely controversial” and, perhaps for that reason, the Rules Committee side-stepped it and did not present a proposal for change.18 At the March 1858 convention, with 23 clubs present, “considerable time was consumed” over a fly game-only proposal made by the Committee before it lost by a close 13–17 vote.19 Again, at the March 1859 convention, “a lengthy discussion ensued upon a proposition” by the Committee to eliminate bound outs, but it failed by a one-sided 15–47 vote.20 The number of clubs had increased by more than 50 percent in one year, from 23 to 36, and the new members may have been largely “muffin” clubs leery of the fly game. At the March 1860 convention, with a pre-Civil War high of 62 clubs present, “the biggest controversy…as it was for several years, was whether to stay with the bound game.”21 Again, a proposal for its elimination lost, by 37–55. This was less one-sided but still not close. The convention that preceded the 1861 season occurred in December of 1860, and henceforth the annual conventions would be held in December. Fifty-four clubs attended the meeting on December 12, 1860, the last pre-war convention. They again debated a fly game proposal described as “base ball’s most contentious issue,” but once more it did not pass, although the vote was closer at 42–51.22

The Civil War began in April of 1861, just prior to the 1861 season, and the main fighting ended in April of 1865. The NABBP conventions continued during the war years although the number of participating clubs dropped significantly. At the first two war conventions, in December of 1861 and December of 1862, only 34 and 30 clubs, respectively, were in attendance. This was only about half the pre-war high number. Likely because of the distractions and uncertainties created by the onslaught of war, the Committee on Rules and Regulation proposed no playing rule changes at either meeting. As William Ryczek noted, with the onset of the war, “the baseball world fell almost dormant.”23 Thus, while the fly game vs bound game issue was discussed at both meetings, no action was taken.

That changed at the December 9, 1863, convention that preceded the last war-time season. A war-time low of 28 clubs attended. The Committee’s decision to again present a proposal may have been prompted by hopeful war news. The Union victory at Gettysburg and the fall of Vicksburg, both in early July 1863, had made a Confederate defeat and a return to normality seem inevitable. In fact, the Committee proposed a fly game rules amendment and “the highlight of the [December 9] meeting was the discussion and voting on the adoption of the fly game.”24 Highlight or not, the fly game proposal again went down, albeit for the last time, by a close 22–25 vote. At the next convention on December 14, 1864, 30 clubs participated. Although unknown at the time, this meeting preceded the first post-war season. Once more “the main event [was] the vote on the fly game…[which] at last prevailed by a 32-to-19 count,” a solid majority.25 Henceforth, outs on fair batted balls could only be made by a catch on the fly, an important step in the maturity of the sport and in establishing baseball as an adult pastime. And, of course, modern baseball would be radically different if the bound game had not been eliminated. Nevertheless, the bound out for foul balls was retained for another two decades.26

 

 

THE IMPACT ON GAME OUTCOMES

After years of controversy, the bound out rule finally was eliminated from NABBP match play. The 1865 season was the first without the rule and an interesting question is: how much difference did it make? All involved in the debate agreed that under the fly game getting outs was more difficult. One would expect, therefore, that the sudden elimination of the easier bound out would result in more runs scored and allowed by each club, i.e., an increase in the total runs for each of its games. Thus, the difference in total runs, if any, before and after the rule change would be an approximate measure of the difference in difficulty.

An ideal experiment to determine this would be to arrange a significant number of fly and bound games between each of several pairs of teams of similar strength and observe the total runs scored. Of course, this is not possible. In reality, the best we can do is compare total runs scored in 1864 and 1865 in games among the same set of similar teams in each year. The New York metro area with its many clubs at that time provides the best opportunity for such an analysis. We identify a set of similar metro area clubs on the field in both 1864 and 1865 that comprise most of the major area clubs in those two years. We examine the games played within this group; games against outsiders are excluded. While professionals were ostensibly not allowed under NABBP rules, it’s clear that by 1865 some sub rosa player compensation was occurring, and so most, if not all, of these metro-area clubs were at least semi-professional.

Our sample is based on the lists of clubs identified for 1864 and 1865 in Wright’s encyclopedic NABBP history.27 We select 14 significant New York metro-area clubs present in both years, including those across the Hudson River in New Jersey and the East River in Brooklyn, then a separate city. The Wright data include game scores for all sample games.

Table 2 shows the 14 sample clubs in alphabetical order and their won-lost records in games among themselves for both years.28 The Atlantics at 12–0–1 and Mutuals at 14–2–0 dominate 1864, with the Actives and Excelsiors the only other clubs above .500. In 1865 the Atlantics again are at the top at 14–0–0, with five other clubs above .500. In 1864, club games-played range from the Eurekas and Stars at three each, to the Empires and Mutuals at 16 each, with six clubs at 10 or more games. In 1865, the range is from the Resolutes at two to the Actives at 16, with seven clubs at 10 or more.

 

Table 3 shows the average total runs scored and allowed per game (RPG) in 1864 and 1865 for our 14 sample clubs, and the increases in RPG from 1864 to 1865. The average RPG was 38.2 in 1864 and 48.9 in 1865. In 1864 the Eagles and Eckfords had the highest two RPGs with 45.0 and 44.3, respectively. The Gothams and the Empires had the lowest with 32.0 and 32.7, respectively. In 1865 the Stars and the Excelsiors had the highest RPG with 67.0 and 63.0, respectively. The Mutuals and the Newarks were the lowest with 35.9 and 39.6, respectively.

 

The key variable in our analysis is the increase in each club’s RPG from 1864 to 1865, shown in the last column of Table 3. This provides a rough measure of the difference in difficulty between the bound and fly games. The Star and Enterprise clubs had the largest RPG increases with 23.3 and 22.3, respectively. The Eckfords and the Mutuals had the smallest increases at –1.0 (a decrease) and 0.5, respectively. For our 14 club sample, the average RPG increase from 1864 to 1865 was 10.7 or 28.0 percent. There was but one decrease.

The RPG increase has a high degree of statistical significance. We apply a paired difference-between-means Student t-test with a null hypothesis of a zero difference between the two years for our sample clubs. The t-statistic is 5.07 with a significance level of 99.99 percent (p-value 0.0001, degrees of freedom=12).29 Alternatively, we can apply a binomial test with a null hypothesis that the individual club RPG increases are equally likely to be positive or negative (probability=0.5). We find that the probability of observing one or zero negative values (decreases) out of 14 is only 0.00091.30 The two significance tests are consistent and provide strong evidence that the increase in runs from 1864 to 1865 was not a random happenstance, confirming that the fly game indeed made fielding more difficult.

It should be noted that in 1864, by mutual consent, clubs occasionally agreed to drop the bound rule for individual games. To the extent that this occurred, the 1864 run totals would have been higher and the increase in runs to 1865 lower. Thus, our above analysis would be an under estimate of the actual impact of switching to the fly game. For example, initially the 1864 Star club of Brooklyn decided to play the fly game only, although it caused difficulties in scheduling games and they dropped the condition mid-season.31 Similarly, in 1865 the rules allowed clubs, by mutual consent, to play the bound game. However, as Hershberger notes, “the new rule was adopted with remarkably little difficulty.…Only a handful of bound games are documented to 1865 or later in adult play.”32

 

 

SUMMARY AND CONCLUSIONS

While it seems strange from a modern perspective, in baseball’s earliest days the dominant controversy regarding playing rules was whether to discontinue allowing batters to be called out when their batted balls were caught on the first bounce. It took many years of vigorous debate and several votes at the annual NABBP conventions before the so-called bound game was finally eliminated in December 1864. Accordingly, an out on a batted ball in fair territory could now only be made if the ball was caught on the fly, the clearly more difficult play. This was a key step in establishing baseball as a “manly” sport worthy of serious attention by adult athletes, spectators and journalists.

Our analysis indicates that the quantitative impact of eliminating the bound game involved an increase of roughly one quarter in total runs scored and allowed per game from 1864 to 1865. The reader can of course evaluate whether, qualitatively, this impact was “large,” “middling,” or “small.” Be that as it may, the difference was not so large as to impede the fly game adoption, which seems to have occurred smoothly with little subsequent controversy, i.e., “manliness” was apparently achieved at an acceptable “cost.”

Thus, a critical component of the modern game was in place for the first post-Civil War season. As Ryczek noted, after the “stagnation of the war years…in 1865, the [New York] game was relatively unknown [nationally] and its future clearly in doubt.”33 Nevertheless, the post-war years saw a dramatic growth in the number of clubs adopting the New York game and a major expansion of baseball’s geographic footprint as it truly became the national pastime. For example, at the convention in December of 1865, “the number of official participating clubs stood at 91,” triple the number at the previous convention one year earlier, and the growth continued through the late 1860s.34 The post-war years also saw the transition to the above-board and fully professional game, and in 1869 clubs began to openly (and “legally”) operate as businesses with players as their employees. Switching from the bound game to the fly game likely played an important role in promoting these changes. 

WOODY ECKARD, PHD is a retired economics professor living in Evergreen, Colorado, with his wife Jacky. Among his academic publications are five papers on the economics of MLB. More recently he has published in SABR’s Baseball Research Journal, The National Pastime, and Nineteenth Century Notes. He is a Rockies fan and a SABR member for about 30 years.

 

Notes

1. For example, see Richard Hershberger, “1857: The First Baseball Convention,” in Jeremy K. Hodges and Bill Nowlin, Editors, Base Ball’s 19th Century “Winter” Meetings: 1857–1900 (Phoenix: Society for American Baseball Research, 2018), 6.

2. Marshall D. Wright, The National Association of Baseball Players, 1857–1870 (Jefferson NC: McFarland & Company, 2000), 83.

3. Robert Tholkes, “Section One Introduction: The Baseball Winter Meetings of 1857–1865,” in Hodges and Nowlin, 1.

4. Richard Hershberger, Strike Four: The Evolution of Baseball (London: Rowan & Littlefield, 2019), 57.

5. Warren Goldstein, Playing for Keeps: A History of Early Baseball (Ithaca and London: Cornell University Press, 1989), 48.

6. Robert Tholkes, “Growing Pains: The 1859 National Association of Base Ball Players Convention,” in Hodges and Nowlin, 22.

7. William J. Ryczek, When Johnny Came Sliding Home: The Post-Civil War Baseball Boom, 1865–1870 (Jefferson, NC: McFarland & Company, 1998), 43.

8. The 2025 Official Rules of Major League Baseball contains 192 pages. https://mktg.mlbstatic.com/mlb/official-information/2025-official-baseball-rules.pdf, accessed April 30, 2026.

9. The complete Knickerbocker Rules, comprising barely more than a single page, are available as part of the 19th Century League and Team Documents Project, organized by SABR’s Nineteenth Century Committee. https://sabr.app.box.com/s/xpr3tl7hw9iwnc5b499pr2yzsv85u8nv/file/1794109396429, accessed April 30, 2026.

10. David Block, Baseball Before We Knew It: A Search for the Roots of the Game (Lincoln NE: University of Nebraska Press, 2005), 86. Block also notes: “Unlike the familiar fly out, however, the bound rule is seldom found in the [early] history of bat-and-ball games.”

11. “Base Ball: How to Play the Game—Rules for Its Government,” New York Clipper, December 13, 1856, 268.

12. Block, 87.

13. For example, see Wright, 82–84; Ryczek, 44–45; John Thorn, Baseball in the Garden of Eden: The Secret History of the Early Game (New York: Simon and Schuster Paperbacks, 2011), 75, 106; David Nemec, The Official Rules of Baseball: An Anecdotal Look at the Rules of Baseball and How They Came to Be (New York: Barnes and Noble Books, 1999), 92; and Goldstein, 48–53.

14. For example, see Tholkes, 20 and 24.

15. This section draws heavily from Part I, Section I: The Baseball Winter Meetings of 1857–1865 in the SABR publication Base Ball’s 19th Century “Winter” Meetings: 1857–1900 (Phoenix: Society for American Baseball Research, 2018), in Hodges and Nowlin.

16. “Constitution of the National Association of Base Ball Players—1861,” 19th Century League and Team Documents Project, organized by SABR’s Nineteenth Century Committee, https://sabr.app.box.com/s/kbe9tr64kel2bgstk58fa5atepq7jk7m/file/1842066890213, accessed April 30, 2026.

17. “The Next Convention: The Fly Game vs. the Bound,” New York Clipper, November 19, 1864, 250.

18. Hershberger, “1857,” 5.

19. Robert Tholkes, “Building on the Foundation: The 1858 National Association of Base Ball Players Convention,” in Hodges and Nowlin, 14.

20. Robert Tholkes, “Growing Pains,” 10 and 21.

21. William J. Ryczek, “1860 Convention of the National Association of Base Ball Players,” in Hodges and Nowlin, 26.

22. John Zinn, “National Association of Base Ball Players 1861 Annual Meeting,” in Hodges and Nowlin, 32.

23. Ryczek, When Johnny Came Sliding Home, 13.

24. Eric Miklich, “To Fly or Not and Other Monumental Changes: The 1864 Convention of the National Association of Base Ball Players,” in Hodges and Nowlin, 49.

25. John Zinn, “National Association of Base Ball Players 1865 Annual Meeting,” in Hodges and Nowlin, 60.

26. Hershberger, Strike Four, 62. For example, an 1879 article “The Bound-Rule in the Fly Game” (New York Clipper, May 17, 1879, 61) argued against the foul-bound out by claiming that its elimination would not lengthen game playing time. In this era of primitive protective gear, catchers often positioned themselves well behind the batter, which in turn enabled bound-out catches on foul-tips that were generally admired as athletic plays.

27. Wright, 82–109.

28. Brief histories for ten of these clubs can be found in Base Ball Founders: The Clubs, Players and Cities of the Northeast that Established the Game, edited by Peter Morris, William J. Ryczek, Jan Finkel, Leonard Levin and Richard Malatzky (Jefferson NC: McFarland & Company, 2013). The four clubs not included are the Enterprise, Gotham, Newark, and Resolute.

29. The p-value and t-statistic were calculated using Excel’s “T.TEST” and “T.INV.2T” functions.

30. The probability was calculated using Excel’s “BINOM.DIST” function.

31. Craig B. Wolf, William J. Ryzcek, and Peter Morris, “Star Base Ball Club,” in Base Ball Founders, 149–50.

32. Hershberger, Strike Four, 61.

33. Ryczek, When Johnny Came Sliding Home, 22.

34. Julia Hodges, “The 1866 National Association of Base Ball Players Annual Convention: Held December 13. 1865,” in Hodges and Nowlin, 64.