THE BASEBALL CODES: Beanballs, Sign Stealing and Bench-Clearing Brawls. By Jason Turbow with Michael Duca. Pantheon. 260 pages. $25.
When I was a boy, my Uncle Ted would take me to Major League games and tell me to watch carefully between pitches. A lot was happening, and I wouldn't want to miss it.
While Ted was mostly concerned with on-field maneuverings, such as a shortstop's shift one way or another on a 2-0 count, his point was this: Much of what happens in baseball occurs either where fans don't see it or in plain sight where they miss it.
In The Baseball Codes, authors Jason Turbow and Michael Duca have richly reported the unwritten rules of the game, a code of conduct that ballplayers begin to learn in T-ball and had better know by the time they reach the show. If they don't, they're likely to find a fastball headed toward an eardrum.
Any viewer of Sportscenter knows that home-run hitters are not supposed to linger at the plate and watch their ball clear the fences. Nor should a second baseman dupe a runner into making an unnecessary slide when the duplicity will do the defensive team no good. Those are the kinds of infractions that lead to retaliation.
But there are many more protocols that govern the etiquette of the game, and it is these on which Turbow and Duca report. For example, a batter never walks between the opposing pitcher and catcher on the way to the plate. A teammate cannot remain on the bench during a bench-clearing brawl. If he doesn't want to fight, all he has to do is run onto the field, grab an opposing player by the jersey and discuss the good restaurants in town.
Retribution is a big part of baseball. A player can do any number of things to irritate the opposing team. When he does, it is then the opposing pitcher's job to put that player on his butt the next time he comes to the plate. But once one team's pitcher hits the other team's batter, then retribution is incumbent on the other team in the next half-inning. It's the Hatfield vs. McCoys on a diamond.
Unless, of course, the first-hit batsman's team recognizes that he deserved his plunking. Maybe the guy shot his mouth off in a pre-game interview or inappropriately took out a second baseman on a previous play.
Turbow and Duca spend a great deal of their book explaining retribution, doing so with numerous anecdotes from baseball history. The book goes beyond that, however, to report on many more codes.
There are codes that govern teammates' behavior in the locker room -- rookies speak only when spoken to, and veterans and superstars get the best lockers. There are rules governing road trips -- players do not tell their wives or girlfriends about any indiscretions committed by their teammates while away from home. There are codes about what one says to management about other players.
The Baseball Codes is probably the most talked-about baseball book of the season. There's good reason. The reporting is very good and the writing is solid. And the anecdotes make the book, especially the chapter on practical jokes.
It's the kind of book that will expand the reader's knowledge of an intricate game.
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