The off-season is a perfect time to catch up on the baseball book reading. If you follow the blog, you’ll already know that a couple weeks ago, we reviewed Gary “Sarge” Matthews book called “Few and Chosen: Defining Phillies Greatness” and talked with Sarge on the Phillies Talk Podcast (which you can find a player for right here on the website under ‘Podcast’ or find it on iTunes, Android, or Stitcher Radio). That book is a great read for Phillies fans.
This month I’m reading a baseball book, called “The Baseball Codes: Beanballs, Sign Stealing, & Bench Clearing Brawls.” The book was originally published in 2010 and it was again published by Anchor Books in March of 2011. There is also a blog that is continually updated with new articles that may make it into a future edition of the book called www.thebaseballcodes.com. The book is written by Jason Turbow with Michael Duca, and it is a look at what goes on during a game that doesn’t get that much attention on a broadcast of the game. The silent code of baseball players, that sometimes leads to beanballs, and bench clearing brawls.
Yes, even the Phillies were accused of sign stealing a few seasons ago, bullpen coach, Mick Billmeyer just happened to have a handy set of binoculars with him out in the bullpen and was having a look around at what the opposing team was doing on the field. All was great with that of course until someone noticed him doing that.
The book is a fascinating tale of what happens in the game when things get out of control. It chronicles several well known brawls and what happened to cause them. Players like Nolan Ryan, Roger Clemens, Mike Piazza, Don Sutton, and more are all in the book. Colorful tales of managers like Tommy Lasorda, and Ozzie Guillen sprinkle in more ingredients that sometimes added to some of these incidents.
A great read and this book gets a double thumbs up from FightinPhillies.com and be sure to check out their website for the book too, as it always gets updated even in the winter months.
