The Cheater’s Guide to Baseball Blog

The Cheater’s Guide got a nice write-up in the new Sports Illustrated, including a nice note on the “rainbow play” post which now includes a sweet comment by their coach! Wooo!

I just got a copy of last week’s USA Today Sports Weekly, and there’s a great review for the book by Devin Clancy. I can’t offer a link because it’s online, so I have to go the old-fashioned way: typing.

This book offers a complete, well-researched and entertaining look at every single kind of cheating. It offers both a historical perspective and a practical guide for both players and fans who want to learn to cheat or spot cheating.

Buy it from Amazon or your local bookseller.

Check it out. Pretty pro, I would say.

It’s interesting he mentions the Black Sox chapter being long: we really struggled with the length of this one, and I ended up chopping a ton of stuff out of it to try as we worked to get the book under wordcount. I really wanted to talk more about Hal Chase, and some of the other connections, and the allegations in 1920 that the team was throwing games in part because they were being blackmailed over 1919, but the draft version so dominated the book that I had to trim it repeatedly.

Size, both in total and relatively, was a continual compromise. I wish I could have done a “complete” version that ran 200,000 words, where balance issues would work themselves out through exhaustive detail… but that’s turned out to be what the blog’s for: additions and expansions.

Check it out.

I’m super happy at all the praise.

Sigal suggests this:

What I miss in Zumsteg’s entertaining manual for baseball delinquents is any serious reference to pitchers throwing murderously inside balls at batters (beaning), runners sliding spikes high into second base to prevent a double play (and, if possible, fracture the baseman’s leg) or other career-ending tricks that have always been part of professional baseball.

There was a chapter on head hunting (in fact, I’ve got a whole file on it) but like equipment, got cut to make the word count.

I promise to hit that up here on the blog, where I can discuss without length considerations.

They’re fans. Check it out. It made me super-happy.

White Sox fans will adore the chapter on groundskeeping, largely devoted to Emil Bossard. His son Roger is the White Sox groundskeeper. As early as 1911 in St. Paul, Emil Bossard was doctoring baseball fields to players’ requests. Zumsteg reports that Joe DiMaggio blamed the Bossards for ending his 56-game hitting streak at Cleveland’s Municipal Stadium by watering the infield so much it slowed the ground balls he hit.

So is that cheating?

Zumsteg writes, “Some people argue that any lie is an immoral act and that any time you lie to gain an advantage, you’ve sinned.

“Those people get really bad deals on consumer electronics.”

If it’s not obvious, I love, love, love the Bossards. I would put an entry about them here every day.

There’s also a request:

Hard core fans will quarrel with errors like referring to A.J. Pierzynski as “then-Oakland A’s catcher” (he never played for the A’s) and Zumsteg ignoring gimmicks like players who wear tons of armor in order to get hit by a pitch (as in the Astros’ future Hall of Famer Craig Biggio), or the great Ron Hunt, who merely knew how to lean into a pitch.

I talk about AJ in today’s errors post, and I promise that body-armor cheating’s on the to-do list here at the blog. The short version is that I didn’t cover it in part because I hugely cut down and scattered an “equipment” chapter because the book manuscript was way too long. But I’ll get to it.

Anyway, pretty awesome.

From “7 Ways to Catch the Fever”

6. Pick up a copy of “The Cheater’s Guide to Baseball” (Houghton Mifflin, $13.95) and see how the pros do it. “Ever see Mike Piazza block the plate, or Derek Jeter slide hard into second? Illegal. But it happens every game.” That promotional copy only leads to more treasures within Derek Zumsteg’s fun and revealing handbook. Find it online or at most local bookstores.

Sweet!

Check it out here.

Is it a good review? A bad one? I don’t really know what to tell you, beyond that it’s a little strange and I don’t know how to react to it.

Baseball blogger Zumsteg (ussmariner.com) argues that cheating-within reason-is not only not a bad thing, it actually makes baseball a more nuanced game. Using a wealth of anecdotal evidence and some statistical analysis, he argues that baseball has evolved hand-in-hand with the aid of its scoundrels, scamps, and shifty characters-and that doctoring the ball or stealing signs necessitates teams, umpires and even fans adopt more complex strategy. Zumsteg draws the line at gambling, game fixing and steroid use, showing little sympathy for the Black Sox and even less for Pete Rose. While baseball aficionados will be familiar with many of Zumsteg’s stories, his wit will keep most casual fans entertained. Whether he’s describing what might happen in a car crash with Pete Rose (“I admitted that I hit your car … Can’t we stop this witch-hunt and get on with our lives?”) or laying blame for the steroid era on everyone from the commissioner to the fans, Zumsteg dispenses with the sanctimoniousness of most current sports writing. Although his prose style and humor are sometimes better suited to the Web (a few lengthy asides come across as amateurish), Zumsteg still creates a funny, honest look at the history of baseball’s black arts.

From the March 23, 2007 issue, it’s one of four books reviewed:

THE CHEATER’S GUIDE TO BASEBALL
Derek Zumsteg
The Pitch
An irreverent history of (and instructional guide to) spitballing, bat corking,
sign stealing, and other practices that “made baseball into what it is today.”

Curveball
Using performance-enhancing drugs “is not nearly as wrong as game fixing,”
insists Zumsteg. “Someone using steroids is trying to play better, not tamper
with the essential nature of the contest.” Somewhere, Barry Bonds is smiling.

Final Score
A stand-up double. B