Thursday, July 19, 2007

BOOK REVIEW: The Cheater’s Guide To Baseball

Author Derek Zumsteg is the kind of guy I’d love to find sitting next to us at a baseball game some time. He’s the kind of fan we run into from time to time who loves the game and loves talking about the game. He tells you things because he loves sharing his knowledge about the game and making people smarter about it makes his conversations about the game even more enjoyable.

This is a horrible, horrible title for a wonderful, wonderful book. Yes, the book does discuss the various ways players “cheat,” but what it really does is explain a nuanced, complex layer of strategy and gamesmanship that also teaches you about baseball and its history.

It is not a book for beginners, or the casual fan. It is a book for people who love trivia and hearing great baseball stories. The person who wrote the book is clearly highly intelligent, with copious baseball knowledge, but at no time during the book did I feel condescended to. After reading this book, I finally understand the hidden ball trick. TBF’s been trying to explain it to me for about a year now.  That’s not an easy thing to understand, but it’s also not an easy thing to explain, either.

Zumsteg explains sign stealing. He explains how you can read signs. He explains how everyone else has stolen signs, including a story about a player getting his cleats stuck in a mysterious wire on the base path. He explains the utterly fascinating history of the spitball. He explains this not using the most arcane terms, but in a careful, thorough way that anyone can appreciate, understand and learn from. The chapter on the tradition of heckling will have you falling off your chair in laughter, and will probably give you plenty of ideas. (I know it has inspired me to further greatness at future games.) Zumsteg explains the improbable - gameskeepers sculpting the FOUL LINES? whoda thunk it?? - and the impossible.

Whereas Hample (see the previous book review) makes you feel like baseball is a secret club that he’ll grudgingly let you join (but he’ll always know more than you) Zumsteg makes you feel as though you’re an invited, honored guest. His enthusiasm shines through, but isn’t tiresome or amateurish. It’s written at a high level, but I think anyone vaguely interested in baseball could pick up this book and get something out of it. TBF and I find ourselves actively discussing and building on ideas or concepts from the book - for example, sure, Babe Ruth didn’t take steroids, but he never faced a pitcher from the Negro Leagues, either. 

None of this will surprise you if you’ve ever visited Zumsteg’s web project, USS Mariner.

I love this book. I am going to buy copies of this book for every baseball fan I know on every occasion possible. We already recommended it to the redhead twins who sit behind us, who are the PERFECT audience for this book. I recommend it to random strangers on the 7 train I end up talking to on the way to Shea. You should buy a copy, too.

Zumsteg has a blog for the book if you want to learn yet more, written in the same friendly, engaging style.