Out of all the baseball books I was looking for, THE BASEBALL CODES made it to my local library first, so I started it before any of the other books on this jaunt. I know I mentioned earlier in the week that this was the 'dark side of baseball' tour, but let's review what baseball can't do: It can't unite a city, it can't avoid the tentacles of human greed, it can't save the world from Commies.
THE BASEBALL CODES chronicles the pettiness of Major League Baseball players across a couple of dimensions, from really spectacular fights to etiquette surrounding pitching and sliding. Professional sports looks a lot more exciting than your average cube farm, but the same clash of personalities and agenda-pushing runs rampant there, amplified by the attention every small gesture gets.
What separates acts like players throwing at other players and sign-stealing from outright misbehavior is that, to a certain degree, these behaviors are expected and welcomed, and the victims are expected not to take their grievances to the press. It's been a while since I saw the word "omerta" tossed around so much, and given that certain players in this book are willing to go on record, it's possible that this tradition is peeling away along with the worst on-field deliberate injuries. The crew of Common Sense Dancing recently opined that fighting in professional sports is "stupid and pointless," and I think that's true of some fighting; I prefer the kind that not only does not result in any injury but from the cheap seats plays out in spectacular silent-film pantomine. (Dear David Wright: NEVER CHANGE.)
Authors Turbow and Duca don't limit themselves to punishment and retaliation: One altruistic phenomenon I had not known about was the unspoken respect for players who are about to break a record or reach a career milestone, and how some of their opponents will step lightly or even help them when it's not strategically savvy to do so. This is not how I grew up playing the few sports I did, but again, it's a professional courtesy.
THE BASEBALL CODES reads more like an almanac or one of those treasured collections of related anecdotes I used to read as a kid, that were just long lists of related facts or stories... so it's better to dip into every once in a while than read straight, particularly if (like me) you want to stop and look up players mentioned in the book. This was all somewhat shocking when I started this book, before I had read about Cicotte throwing Game 1 or Jim Bouton getting his spikes nailed to the clubhouse floor. But after all that, it took on a dimension of playground justice, the type of passive-aggressiveness that takes place in every office.
Tomorrow: Odds, ends, miscellany.
