Reasons for Rules

[tcannizzo]

We all have an understanding of the logic and reason for the existence of certain rules, LBR, IFF, D3K, and countless others.

In some cases, there may be "old wive's tales" which I suspect behind why it is a dead ball strike when the batter gets hit by a pitch while in the act of swinging. The way I heard it told was back in the day, players would take a full swing at a pitch, and purposely allow the ball to hit off their arms/hands, equating to a bunted ball, and that some umpires got fooled by this trick and it was deemed unfair to the defense. Whether true or not, it makes for a good story.

I am interested in researching this topic further and haven't figured out the right search term for google to find a source for this type of information.

Perhaps we can have a fun thread here with this if others have interesting, factual and even unprovable logic for other rules.

What say ye?