Are all bunts called sacrifice bunts regardless of the outcome, and has this been the case for quite some time?
No. You can bunt for a base hit, even if no one is on base. That wouldn’t be a sacrifice.
It is only called a sacrifice when the batter advances a baserunner. Also, if in the opinion of the official scorer, the batter was trying to reach base for a hit rather than merely advancing a baserunner, the scorer may not credit the batter with a sacrifice.
Also, it’s not regardless of outcome.
The batter must be forced or tagged out or it’s not a sacrifice, it’s just a bunt.
I was just at a Cleveland Guardians game and saw one batter try to bunt several times. He got thrown out, though.
According to Larry Tye’s excellent bio Satchel, about legendary Negro (and later Major) League pitcher Satchel Paige, the coach of the Pittsburgh Crawfords, I think it was, liked bunting so much that he trained his players so that they could reliably bunt into a baseball cap placed anywhere in the infield.
Also adding that unlike full swings where a foul ball to ground after two strikes is not considered a strike out, if you bunt foul to ground after two strikes, it is marked down as a strikeout.
That’s what I came in here to say. Which is why you’ll often see people give up on attempting to bunt when they have two strikes already.
If an error is made in attempting to retire the batter, it’s still counted as a sacrifice bunt, even though he’s not out.
Ditto if the defense tries to get the advancing runner, who is safe though the batter could have been retired. It’s a sacrifice. It would only be scored as a hit if, in the scorer’s opinion, they wouldn’t have retired the batter.