Strike as an English word (meaning to hit) is certainly older than strike as a baseball term (meaning not to hit), so what puzzles me is that the word adopted for the action is the exact opposite of the action.
Etymonline indicates that the first use is in the mid-19th century, but gives no indication of how it came to be used.
Can anyone shed any light on why such an ill-suited word was chosen for the action of not striking the ball? If it is is actually an appropriate word for this, why is it?
(Additionally, to be stricken by something, usually an illness I believe, means to be afflicted by it, and seems to be a metaphor for being hit by an disease.)
Edit: Interesting things to consider
In the context of the American court systemref (and probably elsewhere), strike is used to mean "remove". Similarly, this is strike text.
Best Answer
According to the Oxford English Dictionary, the use of strike in baseball was originally referred to as:
The literal definition is (there is also the figurative one of having "a strike against you):
It was first used in the 1800s:
So a strike in baseball comes from the attempt to strike the ball. It seems that it was used positively for a while--there are quotes referring to "great strikes". It looks like our current use of strike could be a shortening of foul strike--it only maintained its negative meaning. By the end of the 1800s, it still referred to the physical act of hitting something:
By the 1900s, however, it was a negative thing:
This is the way we use it today.