When it comes to baseball, I've done it all: played, coached, announced, compiled stats, scouted, ushered, and even sold beer. On most occasions, I figured I've learned just about everything there is to the game.
Until I read "The Baseball Codes".
While not a literary masterpiece, TBC wonderfully held my attention throughout all of its 200+ pages. Every chapter had tidbits, insights, and anecdotes about the game that could only have been relayed by a skilled and enthusiastic author such as Mr. Turbow.
How many fans know that:
1) It's often the pitcher who gives signs, not the catcher.
2) Carlton Fisk had a career-long routine about where he sat in every team plane and bus.
3) One of baseball's brawniest players was scorned for not participating in brawls.
4) Bob Feller used WWII technology to steal signs after he came home from combat in the Pacific.
Mr. Turbow relates each of these and many, many more.
The last few pages of TBC are about Rex "Hurricane" Hudler. A hustling, free-spirited utility man, Hudler's last career at-bat makes for a perfect ending for Mr. Turbow's classic. Regardless of what happened when that last pitch came toward Hudler (I won't reveal it here), he upheld the unwritten rules have made baseball and this book so unique.Get more detail about The Baseball Codes: Beanballs, Sign Stealing, and Bench-Clearing Brawls: The Unwritten Rules of America's Pastime.
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