November 2 1930 – Ernest Barnard completes his three-year contract as president of the American League. Among Barnard’s innovations have been the establishment of an umpire’s school and the recodifying of the rule book. He also led the effort to eliminate the sacrifice fly scoring rule: he considers that with inflated batting averages resulting from the livelier baseball, the batter no longer needs the benefit of not being charged a time at bat when his fly ball advances a runner.