Expert: Tom Schott - 8/26/2011

Question
Why is the pitcher,s mound in baseball elevated?

Answer
Carol,

Good question. The movement towards raising the pitcher's mound originated sometime in the late 1880s or early 1890s. Apparently, there was no specific inventor of the raised pitcher's mound, but it came to be realized that raising the mound so pitchers threw the ball on a downward slope increased the speed of the throw. Groundskeepers would add dirt to the pitchers box after a rainstorm. Pretty soon the dirt was requested whether it had rained or not.

There's another hypothesis that the pitcher's mound was elevated to help drainage after a rain. And they were pretty much perceived as such until the early 1900s.

By the beginning of the 20th century, mounds were fairly common because the fact that it helped the pitcher was becoming common knowledge. In 1903 a rule was made that the mound could not be any higher than 15 inches. The rule was changed in 1968, after an incredible season for pitchers, and the mound was lowered to 10 inches.

See: http://www.baseball-reference.com/bullpen/Pitcher's_mound