The Baseball Codes: Beanballs, Sign Stealing, & Bench-Clearing Brawls: The Unwritten Rules of America's Pastime »

Jason Turbow has written for The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, SportsIllustrated.com, and Slam magazine. He is a regular contributor to Giants Magazine and Athletics, and for three years served as content director for “Giants Today,” a full-page supplement in the San Francisco Chronicle that was published in conjunction with every Giants home game. He lives in the San Francisco Bay Area with his wife and two children.
 
Michael Duca was the first chairman of the board of Bill James’s Project Scoresheet, was a contributor to and editor of The Great American Baseball Stats Book, and has written for SportsTicker, “Giants Today” in the San Francisco Chronicle, and the Associated Press. He covers the San Jose Sharks for Examiner.com and works for the Office of the Commissioner as an official scorer and for MLB.com. He lives in the San Francisco Bay Area.

Everyone knows that baseball is a game of intricate regulations, but it turns out to be even more complicated than we realize. What truly governs the Major League game is a set of unwritten rules, some of which are openly discussed (don’t steal a base with a big lead late in the game), and some of which only a minority of players are even aware of (don’t cross between the catcher and the pitcher on the way to the batter’s box). In The Baseball Codes, old-timers and all-time greats share their insights into the game’s most hallowed—and least known—traditions. For the learned and the casual baseball fan alike, the result is illuminating and thoroughly entertaining.
 
At the heart of this book are incredible and often hilarious stories involving national heroes (like Mickey Mantle and Willie Mays) and notorious headhunters (like Bob Gibson and Don Drysdale) in a century-long series of confrontations over respect, honor, and the soul of the game. With The Baseball Codes, we see for the first time the game as it’s actually played, through the eyes of the players on the field.
 
With rollicking stories from the past and new perspectives on baseball’s informal rulebook, The Baseball Codes is a must for every fan.

The New York Times - Bruce Weber

For true baseball-niks, the discussions of these issues won't be especially enlightening. With so many former athletes now in the broadcast booth, the unwritten rules of the game get a pretty regular airing…But the stories the authors have unearthed to illustrate ballpark justice and morality are often delicious.

Introduction 3

Part 1 On The Field

1 Know When to Steal'Em 17

2 Running into the Catcher 33

3 Tag Appropriately 36

4 Intimidation 38

5 On Being Intimidated 50

6 Slide into Bases Properly 55

7 Don't Show Players Up 59

8 Responding to Records 72

9 Gamesmanship 80

10 Mound Conference Etiquette 88

Part 2 Retaliation

11 Retaliation 97

12 The Wars 132

13 Hitters 142

14 Off the Field 152

Part 3 Cheating

15 Sign Stealing 157

16 Don't Peek 168

17 Sign Stealing (Stadiums) 172

18 If You're Not Cheating, You're Not Trying 182

19 Caught Brown-Handed 199

Part 4 Teammates

20 Don't Talk About a No-Hitter in Progress 209

21 Protect Yourself and Each Other 221

22 Everybody Joins a Fight 228

23 The Clubhouse Police 235

Conclusion 252

Acknowledgments 261

Notes 267

Index 279