The Rules of Baseball: An Anecdotal Look at the Rules of Baseball and How the Came to Be

Nemec David

ISBN 10: 1558212795 ISBN 13: 9781558212794

Publisher: Lyons And Burford, 1994

Synopsis

Nemec, David

About this title

From the Back Cover:

Fascinating in their origins, central to the history of the game and to how it is played today, the rules of baseball provide never-ending material for the arguments, anecdotes, and great moments that make baseball what it is.In The Rules of Baseball, David Nemec relates the history of the rules, explores how the rules have changed and why, and relates some of the many memorable episodes in baseball in which the rules have played a central role: the famed "Pine Tar Game," the beaning of Ray Chapman, and many more.The book is illustrated with over 50 black-and-white photographs of key moments in the evolution of baseball's rules. The Rules of Baseball will be required reading for anyone who wants to know the game well - and for the millions of fans who want to know it better.

From Publishers Weekly:

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.

About this edition

• Publisher: Lyons And Burford
• Publication date: 1994
• ISBN 10: 1558212795
• ISBN 13: 9781558212794
• Binding: Loose Leaf
• Number of pages: 270