What did baseball umpires used to sit on when the game first started?

Baseball umpires originally sat on rocking chairs when the game first started. In the earliest days of organized baseball, the umpire was positioned well behind home plate—often described as roughly 20 feet away—rather than crouching directly behind the catcher as modern plate umpires do.

The rocking chair was practical as well as amusing: early umpires were expected to judge the game from a comfortable position, and the rules and equipment had not yet developed into the fast, close-call sport familiar today. As pitching became more specialized and calls at the plate grew more important, umpires gradually moved closer to the action and began standing behind the catcher.

A common mix-up is assuming that early umpires always used ordinary chairs, benches, or crates. Different accounts describe changing positions and practices during baseball’s early history, but “rocking chairs” is the famous trivia answer and the canonical phrasing for this question. By the late 19th century, the modern standing or crouching position was replacing this leisurely arrangement.