The Baseball Codes: Beanballs, Sign Stealing, and Bench-Clearing Brawls: The Unwritten Rules of America's Pastime [Deckle Edge] [Hardcover]

Fantastic book for fans of the game, especially the untold rivalries and minutiae that has passed into legend inaccurately. Very funny.

In The Baseball Codes: Beanballs, Sign Stealing and Bench Clearing Brawls - The Unwritten Rules of America's Pastime, author Jason Turbow compiles an amazing collection of anecdotes from major league baseball, past and current, which are all the more amazing when one realizes that baseball, like fight club, has its own severe code of silence. From this we are supposed to glean proper baseball etiquette on the field, in the clubhouse and pretty much anywhere else the game's players are recognized as such. But unlike Emily Post's dos and don'ts, those who breach these rules of etiquette can face a pretty harsh sanction in the form of a ninety mile per hour fastball to the cranium and other painful or humiliating treatment. The first part of the book is especially dark and might easily be renamed "the history of the beanball." If you're the kind of sports fan who enjoys vicious hockey fights or career-ending football hits, you'll probably like these accounts of the rules and their punishments for breach, but if you watch the game for pin-point pitch placement, hitters who can find the sweet spot on the baseball, nimble fielding and the like, you will probably tire of this subject matter.

The section on sign-stealing is quite interesting, especially in the author's description of how it's done and how it's detected. But we are told of big league baseball's curious ethic: cheaters are severely punished on the one hand, but on the other hand cheating is expected. In fact honest players are condemned for the lack of a will to win. The moral of the story is "cheat, just don't get caught."

The author also describes the hierarchy inside the clubhouse and how rookies are treated. Many of these stories don't do much to endear you to the game's players. Some are just flakes, while others are cruel and sadistic. But there is some hope on the horizon as the author concludes that the worst of all of this may be in the past.

If you read this book expecting to get a better understanding of the strategy of the game, this is doled out in a very small dose. If you're looking for a behind the scenes look at the secret world of big league ball players, the author has some excellent sources, many excellent stories to tell, some of them exceedingly funny. One subject that the author avoids completely however is steroid use and other performing enhancement drugs. On this topic either the author agreed to avoid it, or the firewalls players put up on this subject are impenetrable.

This book is a terrific source of insight into the game. Unfortunately it's mostly an insight into the darker side of the game, and will leave the reader with a lesser opinion of America's pastime.

I really enjoyed this book. It's a quick and informative read, full of insights about the national game and the players engaged in it. I was surprise to find anecdotes about team dissentions (such as an important feud between Troy Percival and Mo Vaughn of the Angels).

No doubt, you'll be aware of MLB's players daily life and routine, how they interact together, what they accept and what they don't. The "Code" is at the core of it all. So important in fact that a guy like Bob Gibson stick to it, even in Old-timers games!

Real fun to read.