The Year of the Pitcher and the Mound That Came Down

In 1968, Bob Gibson posted a 1.12 earned run average. Denny McLain won 31 games. Carl Yastrzemski led the American League in batting at .301, the lowest average to lead a league in modern history. Across both leagues, the collective batting average was .237, and shutouts piled up at a rate that made offense feel scarce.

Baseball had a problem. The pitchers had taken over, and the game was boring.

The 1968 season became known as the "Year of the Pitcher," and the response to it was one of the most significant rule changes in the sport's history. Before the 1969 season, baseball lowered the pitcher's mound from 15 inches above the playing field to 10 inches, and shrank the strike zone back to the smaller dimensions that had been in place before 1963. It was the biggest physical alteration to the playing field since the pitching distance was set at 60 feet, 6 inches in 1893, and it was done for the same reason: offense was dying.

How the Mound Got So High

The pitcher's mound didn't always exist. Before 1893, pitchers threw from a flat surface inside a "pitcher's box." When the rules committee moved the pitching distance back and replaced the box with a rubber slab, the mound began to develop informally. Teams built up the dirt around the rubber, giving their pitchers a downhill plane to throw from. The higher the mound, the greater the advantage.

For decades, the rules were loose about mound height. The only regulation said the top of the mound couldn't exceed 15 inches above the playing field. Enforcement was spotty. Some teams, particularly those with dominant pitching staffs, were accused of building their mounds higher than regulation. Dodger Stadium in Los Angeles was particularly notorious. The Dodgers had Sandy Koufax and Don Drysdale, and their mound was widely suspected of being taller than the allowed 15 inches.

By the mid-1960s, the combination of a 15-inch mound, an expanded strike zone (widened in 1963), and increasingly sophisticated pitching had tilted the game decisively away from hitters. Gibson's 1968 season was the peak, or the bottom, depending on your perspective.

Gibson's Season

What Gibson did in 1968 borders on the absurd. He started 34 games and completed 28 of them. He threw 13 shutouts. Over one stretch in June and July, he threw 47 consecutive scoreless innings. His ERA for the full season, 1.12, is the lowest by any qualifying pitcher since the dead ball era. In the World Series that fall against Detroit, he struck out a record 17 batters in Game 1.

Gibson was not alone. The entire pitching landscape had shifted. Don Drysdale threw 58 consecutive scoreless innings that year, breaking Walter Johnson's record. Luis Tiant posted a 1.60 ERA. Sam McDowell struck out 283 batters. Catfish Hunter threw a perfect game. The American League as a whole posted a 2.98 ERA. For batters, it was a nightmare.

The Fix

After the 1968 season, baseball's rules committee acted quickly. Two changes were made for 1969. First, the mound was lowered from 15 inches to 10 inches, reducing the downhill advantage that pitchers had exploited for decades. Second, the strike zone was restored to its pre-1963 dimensions, shrinking from "the top of the shoulders to the bottom of the knees" back to "from the armpits to the top of the knees."

The effects were not as immediate as the 1893 distance change had been, but they were real. In 1969, the average runs per game jumped from 3.42 to 4.07. By 1970, it was 4.34. Home runs climbed. Batting averages rose. The game opened up again.

The Pattern

Baseball had seen this imbalance before. The same dynamic prompted the move from 50 feet to 60 feet, 6 inches in 1893, and the same dynamic prompted the spitball ban and cleaner baseball protocols in 1920. Pitchers get better. The rules favor them too much. Offense disappears. Fans get bored. The rules are adjusted. Offense comes back. The cycle repeats.

The mound height has not changed since 1969. But the debate over pitcher-batter balance never ends. In 2023, MLB introduced a pitch clock to speed up the game and added bigger bases. They've tested moving the mound back in independent leagues. Every few years, the strikeout rate climbs to a new record, and the conversation about whether to change the distance or the mound starts again.

The 1968 season remains the most dramatic example of what happens when the scales tip too far. Gibson was so dominant that baseball literally changed the field to slow him down. It's the highest compliment the sport has ever paid a pitcher, even if Gibson himself never saw it that way.