anniew415's review against another edition
2.0
Fun, but eventually got boring... I really wanted to love it, but just got tired of it. Too many stats and not enough stories...
blevins's review against another edition
4.0
Audio book.
This was pretty funny at times as it goes through all the unwritten baseball codes--bean balls, stealing signs, taking out players, throwing spit balls, etc. I'm a big believer in the codes and it really bothers me when I'm watching games now and these youngsters ignore the code or are completely unaware of it. Some of these codes have existed for coming up on 100 years!
This was pretty funny at times as it goes through all the unwritten baseball codes--bean balls, stealing signs, taking out players, throwing spit balls, etc. I'm a big believer in the codes and it really bothers me when I'm watching games now and these youngsters ignore the code or are completely unaware of it. Some of these codes have existed for coming up on 100 years!
robinmusubi's review against another edition
3.0
An eye opening look into the darker emotions and traditions in baseball. While these traditions have somewhat died out today, people still get plunked for rounding the bases a little too slowly.
dsheffield206's review against another edition
emotional
funny
informative
inspiring
lighthearted
reflective
fast-paced
3.5
dcox83's review against another edition
4.0
I think your enjoyment of this book depend on how much you enjoyed/hated the Ken Burns baseball documentary.
Turbow doesn't really offer any surprises in his "Unwritten Rules of baseball,": don't send runners when you're up by 5 runs, if you hit my guy I'm going to hit your guy, everybody comes off the bench for a fight. Mostly stuff like that.
So if you're looking for some insight into the innerworkings of the game, then this might not be the book for you.
If you can't get enough of behind-the-scenes stories from ball players of every era, then you'll probably love this book. Feuds I didn't even know existed were laid out for me, as well as in-depth looks at incidents of cheating (Remember when Kenny Rogers pitched for the Tigers that one time?) and clubhouse arguments.
I loved this book for its personal insights, but not necessarily it's technical insights.
Turbow doesn't really offer any surprises in his "Unwritten Rules of baseball,": don't send runners when you're up by 5 runs, if you hit my guy I'm going to hit your guy, everybody comes off the bench for a fight. Mostly stuff like that.
So if you're looking for some insight into the innerworkings of the game, then this might not be the book for you.
If you can't get enough of behind-the-scenes stories from ball players of every era, then you'll probably love this book. Feuds I didn't even know existed were laid out for me, as well as in-depth looks at incidents of cheating (Remember when Kenny Rogers pitched for the Tigers that one time?) and clubhouse arguments.
I loved this book for its personal insights, but not necessarily it's technical insights.
musiquedevie's review against another edition
5.0
Filled with timely anecdotes, The Baseball Codes is a simple and easy to read "manual" on illustrating the Codes and how they're enacted (or not) in the game. Sometimes funny to hilarious, to eye-opening to insightful, this book helps give a fan educational insight into the inner workings & mentalities of the game we love.
byashleylamar's review against another edition
3.0
I am a big baseball fan and I had really high hopes for this book when I first picked it up. I thought to myself, “Any book about my favorite sport has to be fantastic!” but I was wrong. Initially I found it rather disappointing and I found it very hard to get in to because it is very basic and doesn’t really get in to the “meat and potatoes” of baseball.
I found myself thinking, “I already know this!” and I kept wanting something more from the book; I wanted to learn something I didn’t already know, I wanted a new perspective on the sport, I wanted inside stories and tales from the dugout and I wasn’t getting that. Instead what I was getting was information about whether or not a batter should bunt to break up a no-hitter (he shouldn’t) or whether or not it’s ok to steal signs (it’s not) and how much of a right a pitcher has to brush a batter back off the mound (a lot!) but I wasn’t getting the new perspective on baseball that I was expecting when I first started reading the book.
For the first few chapters I was feeling like it was a great book for someone new to the sport, but not for anyone with any knowledge or understanding of the game. Happily though, after the first 60 pages – 75 pages, it got better and I found myself finding beginning to get the information that I had been hoping for since I picked up the book. The book finally begins to tell insider clubhouse stories and the history of team and player rivalries and history of sign stealing and cheating and I couldn’t put it down.
If you pick it up, please don’t give up on this one because it is worth reading. By the time I reached the final pages I was wishing I had more to read simple because I was enjoying the anecdotes.
I found myself thinking, “I already know this!” and I kept wanting something more from the book; I wanted to learn something I didn’t already know, I wanted a new perspective on the sport, I wanted inside stories and tales from the dugout and I wasn’t getting that. Instead what I was getting was information about whether or not a batter should bunt to break up a no-hitter (he shouldn’t) or whether or not it’s ok to steal signs (it’s not) and how much of a right a pitcher has to brush a batter back off the mound (a lot!) but I wasn’t getting the new perspective on baseball that I was expecting when I first started reading the book.
For the first few chapters I was feeling like it was a great book for someone new to the sport, but not for anyone with any knowledge or understanding of the game. Happily though, after the first 60 pages – 75 pages, it got better and I found myself finding beginning to get the information that I had been hoping for since I picked up the book. The book finally begins to tell insider clubhouse stories and the history of team and player rivalries and history of sign stealing and cheating and I couldn’t put it down.
If you pick it up, please don’t give up on this one because it is worth reading. By the time I reached the final pages I was wishing I had more to read simple because I was enjoying the anecdotes.
thomcat's review against another edition
2.0
The authors conclusion, summarized - The unwritten rules of baseball primarily exist to promote respect for other players, the team, and the game itself, and the most common enforcement of those rules were the bean ball and the kangaroo court fine. Both these rules and their enforcements are fading away because players are more focused on their paychecks.
That conclusion was from the end of the book. Before that, the authors offer anecdotes - and nothing but anecdotes - for 250 pages. Other than a loose clustering by the superstition or unwritten rule broken, they are unsorted - 1916 sits next to 1996. As a whole, this book wears thin quickly.
That conclusion was from the end of the book. Before that, the authors offer anecdotes - and nothing but anecdotes - for 250 pages. Other than a loose clustering by the superstition or unwritten rule broken, they are unsorted - 1916 sits next to 1996. As a whole, this book wears thin quickly.