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Originally Posted by IRISHMAFIA
This was in place long before there was stealing in SP. Don't know why it was enacted to begin, but I can tell you that the majority, if not most, of the pitches that hit the plate do not pass through the strike zone.
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As explained by the former Deputy Director of Umpires, the greatest inconsistency in calling the strike zone in slow pitch in early years before the plate was defined as an automatic ball was when pitches hit the plate. They decided that it would be more consistent and easier to explain if the rule was changed to require pitches to pass through the strike zone and not hit the plate. In explaining that rule, they used the language that the ball had to pass the plate to be a strike.
It was an easy extension of that logic when stealing was added; balls short of the plate are dead, thus balls that hit the plate are dead; the ball must pass the plate to be considered a strike, and to be live for stealing.