For baseball fans, few things are more exciting than watching a no-hitter. Surprisingly, under the original rules of the game, not only would a no-hitter not occur, but it would have resulted in stern rebukes directed at the pitcher and a word of encouragement to the batter.

Baseball’s original rules called for the pitcher to throw so the batter could hit the ball. The goal was to put the ball in play. The result was that instead of calling a strike, the umpire might just nicely ask the batter to try a little harder.