The Cheater's Guide To Baseball

Derek Zumsteg

• Publisher: Mariner Books
• Year: 2014
• eBook ISBN:
  9780547525105
• Print ISBN:
  9780618551132

Ever see Mike Piazza block the plate? Or Derek Jeter slide hard into second? Illegal. But it happens every game. Baseball's rules, it seems, were made to be broken. And they are, by the players, the front office, and even sometimes the fans. Like it or not, cheating has been an integral part of America's favorite pastime since its inception. The Cheater's Guide to Baseball will show you how cheating is really done. In this lively tour through baseball's underhanded history, readers will learn how to cork a bat, steal signs, hurl a spitball, throw a World Series, and win at any cost!

They'll also see the dirty little secrets of the game's greatest manipulators: John McGraw and Ty Cobb; Billy Martin and Gaylord Perry; Graig Nettles and Sammy Sosa; and, yes, even Barry Bonds. They'll find out how the Cleveland Indians doctored their basepaths to give new meaning to the term home field advantage. They'll delight in a hilarious examination of the Black Sox scandal, baseball's original sin. And, in the end, they'll come to understand that cheating is as much a part of baseball as pine tar and pinch hitters. And it's here to stay.

Table of contents

• Title Page
• Table of Contents
• Copyright
• Dedication
• Introduction: Toward a philosophy of cheating
• CHEATING FOR BEGINNERS
• John McGraw and his 1890s Orioles
• Home field advantages: Groundskeeping
• Cracking codes and baseball’s Midways: Stealing signs
• Arguing with umps
• Delaying the game for fun and profit
• The exotic bird of cheating: The hidden ball trick
• Billy Martin, a cheater’s cheater
• Heckling, fan participation, and riots
• THE ILLEGAL BUT CUTE
• It’s not how you swing the bat, it’s what you’ve stuffed inside
• Doctoring the Ball
• Gaylord Perry: Greatest cheater ever
• THROWN OFF THE VARSITY TEAM
• Gambling and game-fixing: The good old days
• The worst thing ever to happen to baseball: The Black Sox scandal
• Pete Rose: The only undeterred gambler
• Steroids: Blame enough to go around
• CHEATING OUR WAY INTO THE SUNSET
• Acknowledgments
• Notes
• Index
• About the Author
• Footnotes