He wanted to make baseball a pitcher's game again. If I see one more 13-10 game, I think I'll just ride my horse off into the sunset. The Commissioner's assistant thought for a while. The umpires are interpreting rules to favor hitters. Umpires began lowering the strike zone, inch by inch.
Some people say that the strike zone was lowered to fit pitches.
As this theory has it, when pitchers began throwing more low pitches, mostly sinkers and sliders, and fewer high pitches, down went the strike zone. Personally, I think it more likely pitchers started throwing pitches lower because the high pitches weren't being called strikes anymore. Umpires shrunk the strike zone to please fans who wanted more scoring. Actually what happened was that umpires began making the strike zone, not interpreting it. The strike zone was the same as it always had been.