The Baseball Codes

By: Jason Turbow, Michael Duca

Narrated by: Michael Kramer

Length: 10 hrs and 4 mins

Publisher's summary

Beanballs, Sign Stealing, and Bench-Clearing Brawls: The Unwritten Rules of America’s Pastime

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.

©2010 Jason Turbow with Michael Duca (P)2010 Blackstone Audio, Inc.

Critic reviews

“Delicious…Entertaining… The Baseball Codes reads like a lab report by a psychologist who has been observing hostile toddlers whack one another with plastic shovels in a sandbox.” ( New York Times Book Review)

“A frankly incredible book—a history and analysis of baseball’s insular culture of unwritten rules, protocols and superstitions, assembled over the course of ten years…I can say without hesitation that this is one of the all-time greats—a first-ballot Hall of Famer.” (NPR)

“[A] highly entertaining read…A comprehensive, sometimes hilarious guide to perhaps a misunderstood aspect of our national pastime.” ( Publishers Weekly)