Compared with the present day, games in the early part of the 20th century were lower
scoring and pitchers were more successful. The "inside game", whose nature was to
"scratch for runs", was played rather more violently and aggressively than it is today.
Ty Cobb said of his era especially, "Baseball is something like a war!" This period,
which has since become known as the "dead-ball era", ended in the 1920s with several
rule changes that gave advantages to hitters and the rise of the legendary baseball
player Babe Ruth, who showed the world what power hitting could produce and thus changed
the nature of the game. Two of the changes introduced were a move to bring the outfield
fences closer to the infield in the largest parks, and an introduction of extremely
strict rules governing the size, shape and construction of the ball, causing it to travel
farther when hit; the aggregate result of these two changes was to enable batters to hit
many more home runs.
