{"id":456,"date":"2008-06-08T23:09:27","date_gmt":"2008-06-08T22:09:27","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/baseballgb.co.uk\/?p=456"},"modified":"2009-09-30T20:05:37","modified_gmt":"2009-09-30T19:05:37","slug":"the-official-rules-of-baseball-illustrated-by-david-nemec","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/baseballgb.co.uk\/?p=456","title":{"rendered":"The Official Rules of Baseball Illustrated by David Nemec"},"content":{"rendered":"

(The Lyons Press, 2006)\u00c2\u00a0288 pages.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Don’t be put off by the name off this publication. I nearly was, when I was scanning through the spines in\u00c2\u00a0the baseball section of a bookshop and thought it was merely a rule\u00c2\u00a0guide with\u00c2\u00a0some extra pictures\u00c2\u00a0for illustration of the topics. In fact, it it wasn’t\u00c2\u00a0for the spine also having on it the name David Nemec (whom\u00c2\u00a0I recognised as an author of books on baseball history), I probably would have skipped on to the next item on the shelf. (Incidentally, for all the great books that have been written on baseball, it’s hard to find a shop in this country with a selection\u00c2\u00a0big enough to\u00c2\u00a0necessitate scanning.)<\/p>\n

So if it’s not what I thought it was, what is it then?<\/p>\n

Well, to\u00c2\u00a0use\u00c2\u00a0a\u00c2\u00a0clich\u00c3\u00a9e that at least is sort of applicable here,\u00c2\u00a0Nemec\u00c2\u00a0has rewritten the rule book. He’s done this by using the official rules of baseball as the structure for his book and then weaving in fascinating anecdotes and other historical\u00c2\u00a0nuggets to\u00c2\u00a0convert\u00c2\u00a0what is a very dry bit of reading\u00c2\u00a0into\u00c2\u00a0page-turning prose. And since many of the game’s great characters were known to push the rules to their limits from time to time, there are plenty of famous names involved in the stories.<\/p>\n

One of the many\u00c2\u00a0things that the book left me with (in addition to a better understanding of the rules)\u00c2\u00a0is an appreciation of why some seemingly bizarre rules might exist in the first place. As an example, let’s take 7.08(i):\u00c2\u00a0a runner is out when, after\u00c2\u00a0acquiring legal possession of a base, he\/she runs the bases in reverse order (I’ve added in the “\/she” here, as the rule book doesn’t seem to recognize that\u00c2\u00a0people without a Y-chromosome\u00c2\u00a0can also play the game).<\/p>\n

Surely this bizarre-sounding rule only needs to exist\u00c2\u00a0because there must be\u00c2\u00a0some potential motive on the part of the runner for doing so.\u00c2\u00a0The rule book’s\u00c2\u00a0offering for a plausible motive\u00c2\u00a0is not particularly\u00c2\u00a0satisfying: “confusing the defense or making a travesty of the game”. Fortunately, Nemec has an example that makes a lot more sense.<\/p>\n

In\u00c2\u00a0the late innings of a tie-game between Detroit and Cleveland in 1908, Germany Schaefer was on first base for the Tigers, who also had a man on third. Schaefer set off for second with the hope of drawing\u00c2\u00a0a throw from the catcher that would enable the runner on third to come home. But the catcher held onto the ball. So Schaefer decided to “unsteal”\u00c2\u00a0a base, to give himself a chance to tempt the catcher once more with a dash to second. According to the anecdote, the catcher couldn’t resist on the second go, and the runner scored. And this was not the only time Schaefer is supposed to have pulled this stunt around that time.<\/p>\n

But here is the real strength of the book.\u00c2\u00a0As tempting as it\u00c2\u00a0is to accept this story as the basis for the rule’s existence, Nemec argues that since the rule was not created until 1920 it is unlikely that the two go together. He\u00c2\u00a0even questions whether the Schaefer story has much substance in fact.\u00c2\u00a0Other similar examples in the book\u00c2\u00a0receive the same logical treatment from Nemec, which, for me, makes this\u00c2\u00a0collection of anecdotes\u00c2\u00a0a very valuable one.\u00c2\u00a0<\/p>\n

Some of the\u00c2\u00a0subjects that are covered are better known than the previous example, including the “Pine Tar Game” between the Kansas City Royals and the New York Yankees. But Nemec goes into great detail with\u00c2\u00a0such examples to ensure that most readers will still learn something. For instance, I was aware that George Brett of the Royals had a two-run homer erased after his bat contained too much pine tar, and that the game had to be replayed from the incident when the umpire’s decision was overturned by the league president, but I did not know a great deal about what happened when the game resumed 25 days later.<\/p>\n

As Nemec explains, Billy Martin, the Yankees manager, instructed his team to immediately make appeals at first, second, and third base, since none of the umpiring crew\u00c2\u00a0had been present at day 1 of the game, and therefore none of them could have\u00c2\u00a0known if Brett had touched all the bases after his home run. At this point, the crew chief\u00c2\u00a0revealed a letter, signed\u00c2\u00a0by all of the crew present at day 1, stating that\u00c2\u00a0Brett and\u00c2\u00a0the runner already on base had both touched all the bags\u00c2\u00a0– Martin’s\u00c2\u00a0ploy had been anticipated and foiled. Furthermore, the Yankees were unable to mount a rally.<\/p>\n

To sum up the book in a sentence,\u00c2\u00a0it\u00c2\u00a0melds the keen historical eye of Nemec with a fresh\u00c2\u00a0structure\u00c2\u00a0around which to present baseball anecdotes. And to return to the bookshop where this review began, I will be alert in future to not judge a book by its spine.<\/p>\n

Have you read \u00e2\u20ac\u0153The Official Rules of Baseball Illustrated\u00e2\u20ac\u009d? Feel free to share your thoughts in the comments section below. Can you recommend any other similar books? If so, let us know.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

(The Lyons Press, 2006)\u00c2\u00a0288 pages. Don’t be put off by the name off this publication. I nearly was, when I was scanning through the spines in\u00c2\u00a0the baseball section of a bookshop and thought it was merely a rule\u00c2\u00a0guide with\u00c2\u00a0some extra pictures\u00c2\u00a0for illustration of the topics. In fact, it it wasn’t\u00c2\u00a0for the spine also having on […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[17],"tags":[76,553],"class_list":["post-456","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-baseball-books","tag-book-reviews","tag-mlb-2"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/baseballgb.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/456","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/baseballgb.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/baseballgb.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/baseballgb.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/baseballgb.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=456"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/baseballgb.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/456\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4936,"href":"https:\/\/baseballgb.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/456\/revisions\/4936"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/baseballgb.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=456"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/baseballgb.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=456"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/baseballgb.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=456"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}