Synopsis
Illustrated with more than fifty black-and-white photographs, a study of the rules of baseball traces the development of baseball rules, examining how and why the rules have changed over the years, as well as key moments in baseball history.
Reviews
Nemec has written an amusing and useful examination of Major League Baseball's official rule book that is part historical documentation, part expert explanation and part anecdotal entertainment. Taking each section of the rulebook, he relates the historical beginnings and reasoning behind the rule in question, expanding on its application by relating instructive and often amusing real game situations. Particularly fascinating in his account are the peculiarly late development of rules we take for granted today: well into the 1930s ball clubs were startlingly aggressive in forcing fans to return balls hit into the stands and ceased the dubious and stingy practice only after a fan, violently set upon by ushers to retrieve a foul ball, sued the N.Y. Yankees in 1937; equally surprising is that the custom of the hometeam batting was merely a tradition, only becoming a rule in 1950. Baseball logic, as expressed by the rulebook, is always strangely entertaining (when a batter hits out of turn, it's the improperly replaced hitter who is declared out); as well as the many rules that umpires almost universally ignore: although allowed, umpires almost never stop a play in progress if a player is injured, often creating scarily comic incidents on the field; and despite rule 3.06, uniformed players (Ricky Henderson for instance) happily and blatantly schmooze with spectators and opposing players before and during games.
Copyright 1994 Reed Business Information, Inc.
Baseball's rules, in their "official" version, read like an IRS manual--and are nearly as unintelligible. Nemec, a noted baseball historian, provides an annotated version of the official rules in which he not only explains them in plain English, but also provides an example of each and an explanation of its origins. For example, most fans are familiar with the rule requiring a runner to "tag up" on a fly ball before advancing. Today the rule says a runner can advance after the ball touches a fielder; at one time, the ball had to be secured by the fielder, which led outfielders to develop their juggling skills. This is an official publication of major-league baseball and is being released in conjunction with the game's one-hundred-twenty-fifth anniversary. An essential purchase for all public-library sports collections. Illustrations to be included in the finished book were not available for review. Wes Lukowsky
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