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Turbow, Jason

September 11, 2017 by admin

WORK TITLE: Dynastic, Bombastic, Fantastic
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WEBSITE: https://www.jasonturbow.com/
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STATE: CA
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http://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/authors/73735/jason-turbow * http://www.npr.org/2017/03/04/518461977/the-1970s-oakland-as-were-dynastic-bombastic-fantastic

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Posted in 408 | Comments Off on Turbow, Jason

PERSONAL

Married; children: two.

ADDRESS

Home - CA.

CAREER

Sports writer. San Francisco Chronicle, “Giants Today” content director, three years. Also regular contributor to Giants magazine and Athletics. Contributor to the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, SportsIllustrated.com, and Slam magazine.

WRITINGS

(With Michael Duca) The Baseball Codes: Beanballs, Sign Stealing, and Bench-Clearing Brawls: The Unwritten Rules of America's Pastime, Pantheon (New York, NY), 2010
Dynastic, Bombastic, Fantastic: Reggie, Rollie, Catfish, and Charlie Finley's Swingin' A's, Houghton Mifflin (Boston, MA), 2017

SIDELIGHTS

For his first book, sports writer Jason Turbow teamed with Michael Duca to write The Baseball Codes: Beanballs, Sign Stealing, and Bench-Clearing Brawls: The Unwritten Rules of America’s Pastime.

The Baseball Codes

In The Baseball Codes, Turbow and Duca outline the unwritten rules of baseball and baseball etiquette. For instance, it is considered rude for hitters to take too long admiring a home run before taking the bases. It’s also a faux pas to steal plates when winning with a significant lead, or to argue with the team manager in front of fans. The authors go into detail on the etiquette of sliding, the delicate nature of retaliation, and the pros and cons of joining an on-field fight. Turbow and Duca not only explore these unwritten rules, they also provide real-world examples of these rules in action, and they name players, coaches, teams, and dates.

Reviews of The Baseball Codes were largely positive, and critics noted that the book is informative and entertaining. Yet, Bruce Weber in the New York Times Online advised: “Readers who are lesser fans may have limited tolerance for such minor episodes of baseball life, especially since what is collectively revealed is how thin-skinned, pouty, childish, vulgar and vengeful the baseball codes condition participants to be. The main dictum seems to be that even though you’re trying to beat your opponents’ brains in, you have to do it in a mannerly fashion, and if you don’t, you’re dead meat.” Weber went on to note that “in many places The Baseball Codes reads like a lab report by a psychologist who has been observing hostile toddlers whack one another with plastic shovels in a sandbox.” On the other hand, a Publishers Weekly correspondent declared that the book is “a comprehensive, sometimes hilarious guide to perhaps a misunderstood aspect of our national pastime.” Alan Moores, writing in Booklist, was also positive, and he announced that “Turbow and Duca have filled a void with this entertaining, revealing survey.”

Dynastic, Bombastic, Fantastic

Turbow’s next book, Dynastic, Bombastic, Fantastic: Reggie, Rollie, Catfish, and Charlie Finley’s Swingin’ A’s follows the Oakland Athletics through the antics of its former owner Charlie Finley (1918-1996). Finley ushered the team to championship status throughout the 1970s, but he wasn’t accepted by other team owners. The author explains that Finley earned a fortune in insurance, and the old-moneyed owners looked down on him. Turbow notes that Finley also flouted the genteel ins and outs of major league baseball, and he was known as a cheap and controlling owner. Yet, Finley also knew how to find and retain talent.

In the words of San Francisco Chronicle Online correspondent Kevin Canfield, “The A’s heyday is rich with story lines, but Turbow doesn’t just focus on the winning years. An East Bay . . . he’s just as interested in the eras that bookended Oakland’s championships in 1972, ’73 and ’74. Accordingly, Dynastic, Bombastic, Fantastic is structured like a classic three-act drama: The rise, reign and fall of the House of Oakland, as recalled by the men who swung the bats, sprouted the sideburns and threw the punches.” Canfield added: “Dynastic, Bombastic, Fantastic has plenty to offer fans both serious and casual. . . . This is also a very funny book, especially if you read Turbow’s many footnotes.” BookPage correspondent John C. Williams was also positive, and he found that “the beauty of Dynastic, Bombastic, Fantastic is that it works on two levels: as a great yarn but also a sharp illustration of the game as it existed just before free agency changed it forever. Turbow tells the story with a facility that makes it the read of the season.” Lauding the book further in Kirkus Reviews, a critic announced that “the narrative benefits immensely from Turbow’s many interviews,” resulting in “a pleasing slice of baseball nostalgia that offers relevance to today’s game.”

BIOCRIT

PERIODICALS

Booklist, February 1, 2010, Alan Moores, review of The Baseball Codes: Beanballs, Sign Stealing and Bench Clearing Brawls: The Unwritten Rules of America’s Pastime; January 1, 2017, Alan Moores, review of Dynastic, Bombastic, Fantastic: Reggie, Rollie, Catfish, and Charlie Finley’s Swingin’ A’s.
BookPage, April, 2017, John C. Williams, “Celebrating the Season of the Cub.”
Library Journal, February 1, 2010, review of The Baseball Codes; February 15, 2017, Gus Palas, review of Dynastic, Bombastic, Fantastic.
Kirkus Reviews, December 1, 2016, review of Dynastic, Bombastic, Fantastic.
Publishers Weekly, January 11, 2010, review of The Baseball Codes; January 9, 2017, review of Dynastic, Bombastic, Fantastic.

ONLINE

New York Times Online, http://www.nytimes.com/ (March 25, 2010), Bruce Weber, review of The Baseball Codes.
San Francisco Chronicle Online, http://www.sfgate.com/ (March 8, 2017), Kevin Canfield, review of Dynastic, Bombastic, Fantastic.

The Baseball Codes: Beanballs, Sign Stealing, and Bench-Clearing Brawls: The Unwritten Rules of America's Pastime Pantheon (New York, NY), 2010
Dynastic, Bombastic, Fantastic: Reggie, Rollie, Catfish, and Charlie Finley's Swingin' A's Houghton Mifflin (Boston, MA), 2017

1. Dynastic, bombastic, fantastic : Reggie, Rollie, Catfish, and Charlie Finley's swingin' A's LCCN 2016043921 Type of material Book Personal name Turbow, Jason, author. Main title Dynastic, bombastic, fantastic : Reggie, Rollie, Catfish, and Charlie Finley's swingin' A's / Jason Turbow. Published/Produced Boston : Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2017. Description xiv, 386 pages, 8 unnumbered pages of plates : illustrations ; 24 cm ISBN 9780544303171 (hardback) CALL NUMBER GV875.O24 T67 2017 CABIN BRANCH Copy 1 Request in Jefferson or Adams Building Reading Rooms - STORED OFFSITE 2. The baseball codes : beanballs, sign stealing, and bench-clearing brawls : the unwritten rules of America's pastime LCCN 2009022253 Type of material Book Personal name Turbow, Jason. Main title The baseball codes : beanballs, sign stealing, and bench-clearing brawls : the unwritten rules of America's pastime / Jason Turbow with Michael Duca. Edition 1st ed. Published/Created New York : Pantheon Books, c2010. Description vi, 294 p. ; 25 cm. ISBN 9780375424694 (hc.) 0375424695 (hc.) CALL NUMBER GV867 .T78 2010 Copy 1 Request in Jefferson or Adams Building Reading Rooms CALL NUMBER GV867 .T78 2010 Copy 2 Request in Jefferson or Adams Building Reading Rooms

Penguin Random House - http://www.sfgate.com/books/article/Dynamic-Bombastic-Fantastic-by-Jason-10970110.php
ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Jason Turbow has written for The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, SportsIllustrated.com, and Slam magazine. He is a regular contributor to Giants Magazine and Athletics, and for three years served as content director for “Giants Today,” a full-page supplement in the San Francisco Chronicle that was published in conjunction with every Giants home game. He lives in the San Francisco Bay Area with his wife and two children.

Read The Baseball Codes blog: www.thebaseballcodes.com
Become a fan of The Baseball Codes: www.facebook.com/baseballcodes
Follow The Baseball Codes: twitter@BaseballCodes
NPR - http://www.npr.org/2017/03/04/518461977/the-1970s-oakland-as-were-dynastic-bombastic-fantastic
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The 1970s Oakland A's Were 'Dynastic, Bombastic, Fantastic'

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March 4, 20177:41 AM ET
Heard on Weekend Edition Saturday
The Oakland A's of the 1970s were legendary for their victories and their colorful demeanor. Scott Simon talks to author Jason Turbow about his book on the team, Dynastic, Bombastic, Fantastic.

SCOTT SIMON, HOST:

The Oakland A's of the early 1970s were one of the greatest teams in history. They won three straight world championships, '72 '73 and '74, five straight pennants. They wore the first colorful uniforms, had the most colorful names, the most colorful - possibly insufferable - owner in Charlie Finley and had a club that looked like they were extras in "Easy Rider" - Reggie Jackson, Catfish Hunter, Vida Blue and Rollie Fingers who had a mustache that could steer a motorcycle.

Jason Turbow's new book, "Dynastic, Bombastic, Fantastic: Reggie, Rollie, Catfish, And Charlie Finley's Swingin' A's," reminds us how that team changed baseball but then burned out and busted up.

Jason Turbow joins us now from University of California at Berkeley. Thanks so much for being with us.

JASON TURBOW: Thank you so much for having me on, Scott.

SIMON: How do you explain the fact that what turned out to be so many big-name stars wound up playing for one of the smallest market teams?

TURBOW: Well, a big part of that was that many of these guys signed before the draft. Before that point, any team could go out and sign any player for as much as they were willing to spend, and those were the heydays of Charles O. Finley and company.

SIMON: How do you explain Charles O. Finley? Because I find we have to begin and end with him.

TURBOW: He was an incredibly complex guy, which is part of what makes this story so interesting.

SIMON: Insurance magnate in Chicago, never spent much time in Oakland for that matter, but he wound up making some fantastically perceptive judgments about baseball, didn't he?

TURBOW: He did. I mean, he was smart enough to know that he wasn't inherently a baseball guy. He wasn't a talent evaluator, and he never really tried to be. What he was was a salesman and somebody who could elicit information out of others. He also had this very unique ability to spend many, many hours every day on the telephone, which is what he did. He would call scouts and fellow general managers and people in front offices across the league, you know, ostensibly to propose trades, to have conversations. He'd pick up information all the while, free assessments of his own players and players on other's teams. And when he heard something repeated often enough, he knew he was on to something, and he used that as the basis for his general managerialship (ph), which itself was unique to him. He didn't hire a general manager for much of his tenure. He just did the job himself.

SIMON: Let me ask you about some of the players on this especially vivid team. Let me begin with Jim Hunter - got the name Catfish from Charlie Finley, didn't he?

TURBOW: Yes, he did. As soon as Jim Hunter signed the contract, Charlie said, oh, yeah, there's one other thing. Do you have a nickname? Jim Hunter said, well, no, I don't. Charlie said, well, what do you like to do? Catfish said, I like to hunt and fish. And Charlie Finley said, that's it. Your nickname is Catfish. And he - on the spot, he invented a story about how a young Jim Hunter ran away from home and his parents went searching for him desperately, and they found him with a string full of catfish that he had caught in a nearby pond.

SIMON: (Laughter).

TURBOW: And Hunter thought it was going to go immediately. He agreed to it. He thought it was just a whim of the moment. But almost from that moment on, there was nobody named Jim Hunter in Major League Baseball. It was only the Catfish.

SIMON: Reggie Jackson - obviously one of the signature players in baseball history, a great ballplayer, Hall of Fame caliber, not always popular, though, was he?

TURBOW: Not always popular. I mean, Reggie had a big mouth and a big ego. You know, the difference between Reggie in Oakland where he spent significantly more time than he did in New York and after he got to the Yankees was that he came up with the players in Oakland. He was friends with some of them. At the very least, they all understood him, and they understood that he really wasn't malicious at heart. He just liked to bark a lot. And when he got to the Yankee Stadium, those players didn't know how to take him, and things really went sour for him there on a personal level.

SIMON: The Oakland A's were often in what amounted to open rebellion against their owner. And maybe we can understand this best if you tell us the Mike Andrews story. This was the 1973 World Series.

TURBOW: Yeah, this is actually the centerpiece of my book, and every time I recount it, it's just as unbelievable as when it happened. Mike Andrews was picked up in the middle of that season to be a right-handed pinch hitter. He had been let go by the Chicago White Sox. He had been a second baseman. He'd injured his shoulder. He wasn't a good fielder. He could barely throw. Everybody knew this coming in. Yet, in game two of that World Series, the A's had to use him at second base in extra innings against the Mets, and he made two key errors. The A's were losing anyway already by a run. They ended up giving up several runs because of the errors. They lost 10 to 6. And after the game, Charlie Finley could not abide it. He couldn't sit still. He wanted to call up minor league second baseman Manny Trillo, but the only way he could do that was as an injury replacement.

SIMON: We'll explain for people who don't necessarily follow baseball - rules that your roster has to be established by the time the series opens. You can't make changes.

TURBOW: Thank you for reminding me that we're no longer on sports talk radio. He tried to replace Mike Andrews with this rookie, and to do so, he had the team doctor give him a very perfunctory examination. He drafted up a memo, forced Andrews to sign it, and he went home. He didn't join the team for its flight to New York, and the players were wondering what's going on. They eventually worked themselves into a lather chanting, we want Mike, we want Mike. Mike never showed up. And for the duration of that flight to New York and that night in the hotel and the next morning, they fomented rage. Reporters couldn't get enough of it. They were knocking on their hotel rooms. They were finding them on the field. They were finding them in restaurants. And the players were more than willing to talk up and down about what a rotten move it was.

And that's essentially where Charlie Finley turned from, you know, a benevolent dictator into someone who resented every player on the roster. They all turned on him, and he couldn't stand it. To the point that the commissioner of baseball, Bowie Kuhn, ordered Andrews reinstated eventually, Finley gave strict orders to his manager, Dick Williams, do not let this guy see the field, at which point Dick Williams immediately inserted him as a pinch hitter...

SIMON: Yeah.

TURBOW: ...Just to rile up the owner. Everybody in Shea Stadium in New York saw what was happening, knew what was happening, gave Mike Andrews a standing ovation. And the only guy in the ballpark not applauding this A's player was his own team's owner.

SIMON: One of the greatest teams ever - why do you think they wound up not being able to sustain it though and become beyond question the greatest?

TURBOW: Well, on the field, it's because the free agency era came upon them, and Charlie Finley was unable to adapt to it.

SIMON: Yeah.

TURBOW: He was a guy who had to have absolute control over his team, and, you know, for good and for bad, it worked out on the field, but he wasn't willing to cede any of that control to the players. And instead of signing them up for reasonable rates when he could, he let them all go. And it bears noting that across the country in New York, Yankees owner George Steinbrenner knew precisely how to play this game from the very beginning. And in short order, he won back to back World Series with the A's' two best players, Reggie Jackson and Catfish Hunter.

SIMON: Jason Turbow - his book, "Dynastic, Bombastic, Fantastic: Reggie, Rollie, Catfish, And Charlie Finley's Swingin' A's." Thanks so much for being with us.

TURBOW: Thank you so much for having me, Scott.

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The Baseball Code: A Question and Answer with Jason Turbow
July 11, 2010 | Filed under: Baseball Stories
A few weeks ago I noticed – at Amazon.com — The Baseball Code, a book written by Jason Turbow and Michael Duca on the unwritten rules of baseball. The book caught my eye for two reasons. First, I like books on sports (obviously). More than that obvious point, though, is that I was interviewed by Jason for an article in Popular Science a couple of years ago (for a story on statistical measures and professional sports). This led me to wonder what Jason had to say about baseball.

After ordering and reading the book, I decided to do what other websites have done with respect to Stumbling on Wins. Yes, I decided to interview the author of the book. And much to my delight, Jason was thankfully willing to play along.

What follows are a few questions I had as I read through The Baseball Code. For those who want even more on this subject, one should order and read the book. In addition, Jason now has a blog – The Baseball Codes — that continues the conversation in the book.

DJ: Let’s start with the obvious question… what led you to write the book?

JT: The idea initially belonged to my collaborator, Michael Duca, who was one of the freelance writers for a Giants-centric page I edited for the San Francisco Chronicle several years ago. As soon as he mentioned the notion, it seemed like an obvious no-brainer. Why hadn’t someone written a book on this topic before? (Of course, in the four-plus years between selling the pitch and publication, two other books came out about baseball’s unwritten rules. Please allow me the clearly biased observation that The Baseball Codes is the best of the bunch.)

I initially saw the book as two things: an opportunity to get behind the scenes in ways that even as a professional sportswriter I’d been unable to crack; and as a platform from which to tell a huge number of terrific baseball stories. I’m a sucker for baseball stories.

Michael and I set out on our respective duties: we each interviewed as many players and ex-players as we could (which included a large portion of each team’s traveling party as it passed through the Bay Area—players, managers, coaches, broadcasters and scouts).

I did a massive amount of research and wrote the book, and have since maintained www.baseballcodes.com to continue the conversation that started when the book came out.

DJ: Your book discusses the code in baseball. Why do you think such a code developed in baseball but not in the other sports?

JT: There are a few reasons, primary among them being that baseball, alone among the major sports in this country, is one of deliberation. Football, basketball and hockey are games of immediate reaction, players’ actions being dictated at least in part by what the opposition is doing. Those sports are more physical than thoughtful.

Baseball, however, possesses a pace that allows individual actions to become imbued with meaning. A stolen base doesn’t have to mean anything, but if it’s done with the appropriate timing, it could mean something. An inside pitch might be happenstance, or it might be sending a message. Deliberate actions, of course, merit deliberate responses.

It’s ultimately all about respect, and baseball has deeper roots in gentlemanly behavior than its major-sport counterparts. This also plays a part.

DJ: Your book discusses many ways in which players have historically “cheated.” Can you briefly list some of the methods your research uncovered?

I must begin this answer by saying that many of the things the public would consider to be cheating—pitchers doctoring baseballs, hitters doctoring bats, stealing signs from the basepaths, etc.—are perfectly acceptable as they pertain to baseball’s Code.

As George Bamberger said, “A guy who cheats in a friendly game of cards is a cheater. A pro who throws a spitball to support his family is a competitor.”

The primary rule regarding cheating in baseball is that once a player is caught, he has to stop. This is why Tony La Russa asked the umpires to have Kenny Rogers wash his hand during the 2006 World Series after a brown clump (believed to be pine tar) was spotted on it, but did not request that they check the pitcher for a foreign substance. What La Russa did leveled the playing field; what he could have done might have gotten Rogers suspended for the duration of the postseason. There’s a huge difference.

In another example, a runner at second, with a clear view into the catcher’s signs, rarely hears about it should the other team catch him signaling pitches to the hitter. Most often, the other team simply changes its signs. (The exception to this comes when somebody tries to steal signs from beyond the field of play via a foreign device such as binoculars, at which point they’re invariably ostracized. This happened earlier in the year with the Philadelphia Phillies.)

DJ: In reading your book it was clear that many baseball players felt comfortable discussing how they essentially had cheated. Was it surprising to you that people were this forthcoming? How many baseball players refused to discuss these issues?

JT: Only a handful of people refused to talk out of about 250 interviews. There are obvious reasons for active players to avoid discussion of ways they might flaunt the rules, but when it comes to ex-players, there’s little to hold them back outside their public image. Some have gone so far as to write articles detailing their methods.

Gaylord Perry actually wrote a book, Me and the Spitter, while he was in the middle of his career. He was one of the few players for whom the perception that he was cheating was actually beneficial. His goal was to get hitters thinking that he was loading up every baseball he threw, which kept them from thinking about hitting. It’s why Perry—and notable spitballers before him, primary among them Lew Burdette—was all fidgets and jangles atop the mound. He’d wipe his brow, run his hand across his shirt, feel his arms, rub his pant legs—anything to lend the impression that he was picking up Vaseline from some location on his body. Even when he wasn’t throwing a spitter, this gave him a tremendous edge.

Still, most ex-players, while talking in detail about ways to cheat, ascribed them to unnamed teammates or opponents. Nobody really wants to be known as a cheater.

DJ: One revelation in your book is that Mickey Mantle was often tipped on the pitch that was coming to him. Obviously Mantle posted some impressive numbers in his career. Should this revelation diminish our view of Mantle’s accomlishments?

JT: Absolutely not. If a sign is stolen, that means the signaler needs better signs. If a pitcher is tipping his offerings (say, by flaring his glove before throwing a changeup), he can hardly fault the opposition for taking advantage.

Mantle is hardly the only Hall of Famer to benefit from this sort of situation. (He is, however, in the minority who had Bob Turley on the bench, using his mastery of pitchers’ tells to whistle signals about what kind of pitch was on the way.)

Hank Greenberg called himself “the best hitter in the world” when a runner at second accurately tipped him to the type of pitch that was about to be delivered. (Tigers manager Del Baker would tip him from the third-base coach’s box with a series of “all right”s and “come on”s—“All right, Hank, you can do it” indicated that a fastball was on the way, whereas “Come, on Hank” meant curve.)

Willie Mays is said to have hit every one of his four homers on April 30, 1961, off pitches that were signaled to him in advance by coach Wes Westrum.

Even Joe DiMaggio appreciated receiving a stolen sign, whenever it was available.

These guys were all playing by the Code. There’s no reason to penalize them for it.

DJ: The cheating scandle today is steroids. Assuming steroids can truly alter performance (and there is some dispute on this point), how would you compare this form of cheating with the other forms of cheating reported in your book?

JT: From where I stand, here’s no dispute on whether steroids can alter performance. They can’t help a guy hit a curveball, but they can help a guy who could already hit a curveball hit it a lot farther. That’s a different conversation, however.

To your point: I’d compare steroids to greenies, which were in use primarily from the 1960s through the 1980s. Greenies are amphetamine pills, which players would use to amp up before games. They were kept in open bowls in the clubhouse and gobbled like M&Ms. Jim Bouton describes the players’ dilemma before games that could be rained out, using the phrase “to greenie or not to greenie.” Nobody wanted that sort of excess energy if there wasn’t going to be a game during which to expend it.

It should be noted that amphetamines were legal for much of this time, in various forms. The diet pills peddled to housewives were loaded with them.

Obviously, steroids have a different effect than greenies, but they fall into the same general category: a method of enhancing one’s performance that’s widely accepted within a player’s professional circle. As such, while I staunchly advocate a comprehensive testing program, I don’t fault the players who took them. They were all but sanctioned from the highest levels of Major League Baseball, and an essential part of advancing many a career through that era.

The primary reason they’re not mentioned in The Baseball Codes is that entire books have been written on the topic (one, Game of Shadows, came out as TBC was in the research phase), and we’d never be able to approach that level of involvement in the small handful of pages we’d be able to allot to the topic.

DJ: In the book you note that pitchers – such as Bob Gibson and Don Drysdale – would deliberately throw at hitters. This was admitted by Gibson and Drysdale and well-known by hitters. This is perhaps an odd question, but if a pitcher is willing to throw an object at a hitter that could cause serious harm, why do the hitters not charge the mound with bat in hand and cause serious harm to the pitcher? In other words, why do hitters drop their bats when they charge the mound?

JT: That’s a good question. I think it essentially boils down to this: Pitcher hitting batter with ball is part of game action. It can usually be passed off as accidental, if the pitcher so desires.

Batter hitting pitcher with bat is nothing short of assault. (After all, nobody ever got mugged under threat of a guy holding a baseball.)

Even the angriest hitters understand that a well-connected knock with a baseball bat could get them banished from the game should enough damage be done. Players have been known to throw their bats at pitcher in response to being drilled. And, of course, there’s the ever-popular mound-charge. Again, however, it’s difficult to mistake the intent of these actions. Anyone who undertakes them has to be prepared for repercussions—official and otherwise.

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9 Responses to "The Baseball Code: A Question and Answer with Jason Turbow"

arturogalletti says:
July 12, 2010 at 8:25 am
Cool Piece. This sound like some nice summer reading.

What are the unwritten rules of basketball? « Courtside Analyst says:
July 12, 2010 at 11:34 am
[…] rules of basketball? By tywill33 I just saw this morning’s post on the WoW Journal. Its an interview with the author of the book “The Baseball Codes“, which is a book documenting the unwritten rules of baseball (like don’t cross over […]

kevin says:
July 12, 2010 at 12:52 pm
“2. No intentional shots to the nads (who was it that broke this rule, was caught, and got suspended? I think it was a college incident)”

Danny Ferry of Duke grabbed Tom Sheehy of UVA in the nads once, but it was Sheehy who got suspended for taking a poke at him.

Jimbo says:
July 12, 2010 at 3:38 pm
DJ: One revelation in your book is that Mickey Mantle was often tipped on the pitch that was coming to him. Obviously Mantle posted some impressive numbers in his career. Should this revelation diminish our view of Mantle’s accomlishments?

JT: Absolutely not. If a sign is stolen, that means the signaler needs better signs.
———————————————————-
Sounds like a line you could use if you worked for the Patriots over the last decade. And I would have to agree – if you feel like you got cheated, maybe you and your team should have been more cautious, instead of crying about it afterward (a la Joey Porter).

Statement says:
July 12, 2010 at 3:58 pm
How about quick-draw Colangelo.

With Chandler, Diaw and Barbosa in and Turk, Jose and Evans out, what’s the WP projections?

Also, consider that the Raps still have the 14.5 million trade exception.

The offseason is the most interesting time to be a Raps fan.

kevin says:
July 12, 2010 at 7:00 pm
I don’t see the problems with stealing signs- on the field. It’s about being alert and paying attention. If you have someone with a telescope wiring in the signs- that’s different. That’s an unfair advantage.

So no, I don’t see a problem with picking up on patterns and making logical conclusions.

The steroids thing is different. Steroids were not being used legally. I can’t believe the players actually think it’s OK to break federal drug statutes to gain a competitive advantage.

robbieomalley says:
July 12, 2010 at 7:18 pm
Statement,

It is tough to make a prediction for the Raptors. Their three best players figure to be Tyson Chandler, Amir Johnson, and Ed Davis. Their three worst should be Andrea Bargnani, Boris Diaw, and Solomon Alabi.

The problem is they all play generally the same positions. So who the Raptors choose to employ for the most minutes will make a big difference. At the moment it seems Bargs and Diaw will get the most minutes, which is a bad thing for the team.

Also making a difference is how healthy Barbosa and Chandler can be and possible improvements from DeRozan. Though, it’s questionable whether DeRozan will ever be very good.

At present I would personally guestimate somewhere in the low to mid 30s in the win column but I haven’t looked at it very closely.

marparker says:
July 13, 2010 at 12:10 pm
Apparently Jordan has put the kaybash on the trade.

Malcolm Gregory Love says:
July 15, 2010 at 5:46 am
The Baseball Codes is the best book on the subject, because Turbow and Duca let the players tell their side of the issue without constantly opining. I did a Q&A with Michael Duca on The Current Reader. Michael is a great raconteur and font of baseball history.
http://thecurrentreader.com/?p=84

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Print Marked Items
Turbow, Jason. Dynastic, Bombastic, Fantastic:
Reggie, Rollie, Catfish, and Charlie Finley's
Swingin' A's
Gus Palas
Library Journal.
142.3 (Feb. 15, 2017): p94.
COPYRIGHT 2017 Library Journals, LLC. A wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution
permitted.
http://www.libraryjournal.com/
Full Text:
* Turbow, Jason. Dynastic, Bombastic, Fantastic: Reggie, Rollie, Catfish, and Charlie Finley's Swingin' A's. Houghton
Harcourt. Mar. 2017. 400p. notes, index. ISBN 9780544303171. $26; ebk. ISBN 9780544303232. SPORTS
In the early 1970s, baseball team owner Charles O. Finley (1918-96) of the Oakland Athletics established a
phenomenal team that is still regarded as one of the best in baseball history. Some say it catapulted baseball into the
modern era. This latest work by Turbow (The Baseball Codes) captures that glorious time period, brilliantly weaving
fascinating tales of the team's colorful cast of characters while offering a behind-the-scenes look at a great time in
sports history. Readers will learn more about pitchers Vida Blue, Catfish Hunter, and Rollie Fingers; right fielder
Reggie Jackson; and third baseman Sal Bando, to name but a few. Finley, nicknamed Charlie O, was quite the
character, and Turbow vividly captures the ups and downs of his team through interviews with former players.
VERDICT An exciting and engrossing book with stories that are worth telling. This work will engage fans of Charlie
O. Finley and the Oakland Athletics, along with anyone captivated by baseball history.--Gus Palas, Ela Area P.L., Lake
Zurich, IL
Palas, Gus
Source Citation (MLA 8th
Edition)
Palas, Gus. "Turbow, Jason. Dynastic, Bombastic, Fantastic: Reggie, Rollie, Catfish, and Charlie Finley's Swingin' A's."
Library Journal, 15 Feb. 2017, p. 94. General OneFile, go.galegroup.com/ps/i.do?
p=ITOF&sw=w&u=schlager&v=2.1&id=GALE%7CA481649135&it=r&asid=7bbde3f86b65ce2f17b9d4f373a72612.
Accessed 2 Oct. 2017.
Gale Document Number: GALE|A481649135

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Celebrating the season of the cub
John C. Williams
BookPage.
(Apr. 2017): p17.
COPYRIGHT 2017 BookPage
http://bookpage.com/
Full Text:
It's a new world, baseball fans. The Cubs are World Series champs for the first time since 1908--and there's plenty to
read this spring about the team's success. The lovable losers stopped losing by employing a manager untethered to
traditionalism, a load of young talent and an analytics-savvy front office. This sort of data-driven thinking has become a
favorite topic of baseball books, and we get another strong entry this year. The gem of the season, though, takes us back
to an earlier era and a much rowdier and more dysfunctional bunch.
To start with the team of the moment: It's hard to overstate the enormity of the Cubs' triumph. Just three years ago, they
were fresh off an abysmal 96-loss season; in this very space, a reviewer had the gall to call the Cubs "inherently funny."
Oh, how the tables have turned. The last laugh goes to Scott Simon, whose My Cubs: A Love Story (Blue Rider,
$23,160 pages, ISBN 9780735218031) is a brisk, sweet romp through Cubs history to the glorious present. Who can
forget the numberless celebrity Cub fans who emerged at the 2016 Classic--your Bill Murrays, your John Cusacks, your
Eddie Vedders? Simon, host of NPR's "Weekend Edition Saturday," was among them, if not so frequently the object of
the Fox cameraman's gaze. Hard to question his bona fides, though. "Uncle Charlie" was Charlie Grimm, who managed
when the Cubs last appeared in the Series in 1945. "Uncle Jack" was longtime broadcaster Jack Brickhouse. Neither of
these men was Simon's uncle in the technical sense, but they were close enough to get him access to Wrigley as a boy
and a lifelong Cubbie bug.
The personal bits are the best parts here. Simon also finds some deep cuts, such as a remembrance of second baseman
Ken Hubbs, whose star shone bright in the early '60s before a plane crash snuffed it out. Most of the rest is familiar to
the initiated--the goat, the Bartman, the victory just lived--though sprinkled liberally with Simon's Cubs-related
doggerel. The Chicago faithful should eat it up, baseball fans with an ear for whimsy will be amused, and no one can
begrudge it (Cleveland devotees excepted).
BUILDING A DYNASTY
More straightforward, though deeper, is Tom Verducci's The Cubs Way: The Zen of Building the Best Team in Baseball
and Breaking the Curse (Crown Archetype, $28, 384 pages, ISBN 9780804190015). The stars of this show are Theo
Epstein, the curse-dispelling general manager who earned his first star with the Red Sox, and Joe Maddon, the
unorthodox coach and, as is reported here, big Pat Conroy fan. Verducci, who got plenty of access to his subjects,
handles Epstein's transition to the Cubs from the Sox and Maddon's coaching philosophy. He structures the story of the
team's construction around a game-by-game description of the 2016 Series. It's an effective and entertaining breakdown
of what looks to be the next MLB dynasty.
THE FUTURE OF STATS
You can be sure the Cubs front office is hip to the stats that are the subject of ESPN analyst Keith Law's Smart
Baseball: The Story Behind the Old Stats That Are Ruining the Game, the New Ones That Are Running It, and the
Right Way to Think about Baseball (Morrow, $27.99, 304 pages, ISBN 9780062490223). The subtitle, in all its
verbosity and italicization, nicely encapsulates the author's impatience with atavistic analysis. And it provides the threepart
structure for the book.
In the first section, Law brings the hammer down on stats like batting average, RBI and fielding percentage--pillars of
baseball cards but irrelevant to a player's true quality. In the second, he discusses more revealing measures like on-base
percentage and fielding independent pitching. In the third, he applies modern stats to questions like the Hall of Fame
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and discusses where the future of baseball analytics is going--particularly with the advent of MLB's Statcast product,
which promises to give us new information and to make hard-to-quantify abilities like defense easier to grade.
Many readers will already know the undeniable truths here (like the idiocy of saves and pitcher wins); on some of the
less familiar concepts (like weighted on-base average, or wOBA), the book is, unfortunately, a bit murky. In most of its
sections, though, it qualifies as a useful introduction to (or refresher on) statistical fundamentals--assuming the reader
doesn't mind a little snark, a flat attempt at humor here and there or a condescending tone. Pete Palmer and John
Thorn's The Hidden Game of Baseball (to which this book owes a great debt) is better stats through dense mathematical
analysis. Michael Lewis' Moneyball is better stats through narrative. Smart Baseball is better stats through polemic.
DYSFUNCTIONAL FUN
One team that most certainly did not believe in "smart baseball" was the 1970s Oakland A's, which took three straight
Series from 1972-74. Jason Turbow tells their tale in Dynastic, Bombastic, Fantastic: Reggie, Rollie, Catfish, and
Charlie Finley's Swingin' A's (HMH, $26, 400 pages, ISBN 9780544303171). This team is a perfect fit for Turbow, a
wonderful storyteller who gave us a rollicking look at major league players' daily lives in The Baseball Codes.
These A's were a dysfunctional bunch, known almost as much for their fighting in the locker room as for their play on
the field. (Manager Dick Williams could shrug off his own role in one of these scrums by telling the press, "And don't
forget, I had five or six scotches at the time.")
What arguably fueled the winning was the one person the A's hated worse than each other: owner Charlie Finley. He
was a dictator, a micromanager and a showman. He favored loading up the bench with pinch runners; one of his prized
signings was a sprinter who couldn't read a pitcher's pickoff move. And he was a skinflint, a quality that earned him the
enmity of his players and that famously drove off star pitcher Catfish Hunter. The beauty of Dynastic, Bombastic,
Fantastic is that it works on two levels: as a great yarn but also a sharp illustration of the game as it existed just before
free agency changed it forever. Turbow tells the story with a facility that makes it the read of the season.
Source Citation (MLA 8th
Edition)
Williams, John C. "Celebrating the season of the cub." BookPage, Apr. 2017, p. 17. General OneFile,
go.galegroup.com/ps/i.do?
p=ITOF&sw=w&u=schlager&v=2.1&id=GALE%7CA490551624&it=r&asid=ad525c53ba97808a99950f17ce1a0b90.
Accessed 2 Oct. 2017.
Gale Document Number: GALE|A490551624

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Dynastic, Bombastic, Fantastic: Reggie, Rollie,
Catfish, and Charlie Finley's Swingin' A's
Publishers Weekly.
264.2 (Jan. 9, 2017): p56.
COPYRIGHT 2017 PWxyz, LLC
http://www.publishersweekly.com/
Full Text:
Dynastic, Bombastic, Fantastic: Reggie, Rollie, Catfish, and Charlie Finley's Swingin' A's Jason Turbow. Houghton
Mifflin Harcourt, $26 (432p) ISBN 978-0-5443-0317-1
One of the most unusual dynasties in baseball, the Oakland A's of the 1970s, gets close scrutiny by veteran sportswriter
Turbow, author of The Baseball Codes, who details how the team was cleverly assembled and peaked during a
turbulent American era. Following a move from Kansas City to the Bay Area in 1967, Finley seizes control of a
lackluster squad, stocking it with a roster of talented rogues and rebels including Reggie Jackson, Catfish Hunter, Vida
Blue, Sal Bando, Rollie Fingers, and Blue Moon Odom in his quest to achieve postseason honors. Turbow challenges
the myth of Finley as a con man and huckster, portraying him as a visionary and promotional genius for his team's
mascot mule, uniform changes, half-price games, and facial hair on players. Conflicts between players in the clubhouse
and in the press only propel the team to win five straight division titles, three American League pennants, and three
World Series. As the 1970s close, the ailing Finley surrenders to free agency and fire sales of his stars, ending his
team's reign. Turbow's scholarly account offers a chance to relive a period of outlandish moments in America's pastime.
(Mar.)
Source Citation (MLA 8th
Edition)
"Dynastic, Bombastic, Fantastic: Reggie, Rollie, Catfish, and Charlie Finley's Swingin' A's." Publishers Weekly, 9 Jan.
2017, p. 56. General OneFile, go.galegroup.com/ps/i.do?
p=ITOF&sw=w&u=schlager&v=2.1&id=GALE%7CA477339333&it=r&asid=a7dfb34e4a43805aec13d6f425cf1ad7.
Accessed 2 Oct. 2017.
Gale Document Number: GALE|A477339333

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Turbow, Jason: DYNASTIC, BOMBASTIC,
FANTASTIC
Kirkus Reviews.
(Dec. 1, 2016):
COPYRIGHT 2016 Kirkus Media LLC
http://www.kirkusreviews.com/
Full Text:
Turbow, Jason DYNASTIC, BOMBASTIC, FANTASTIC Houghton Mifflin Harcourt (Adult Nonfiction) $26.00 3, 7
ISBN: 978-0-544-30317-1
The history of a fascinating franchise during professional baseball's colorful 1970s era.Sports journalist Turbow (coauthor:
The Baseball Codes: Beanballs, Sign Stealing, and Bench-Clearing Brawls--the Unwritten Rules of America's
Pastime, 2010) focuses on Charlie Finley (1918-1996), the owner of the Oakland Athletics franchise, and the key
players on his flamboyant championship teams of the early 1970s. Finley, who earned his fortune in the insurance
industry, never won acceptance in the club of wealthy, white male owners of Major League Baseball teams. He was
irreverent about the rules and traditions of the game, and, perhaps as shocking to the baseball establishment, he openly
exhibited his control-freak nature, narcissism, "hard-edged attitude," illogical penny-pinching, and a host of other
unpleasant traits. Despite his larger-than-life character, Finley often made wise decisions about corralling talented
players for his rosters. For a few glory years, the players, many of a rebellious nature, meshed well on and off the field.
(Turbow quotes pitcher Blue Moon Odom that to join Finley's roster, "you have to pass the crazy test. You fill out that
application--are you crazy? If the answer is no, we don't want you.") The narrative benefits immensely from Turbow's
many interviews with the long-retired players from the Athletics' dominant stretch. A cast of characters section
provides information about the post-baseball careers of the members of this particular dynasty, including such wellknown
names as Reggie Jackson, Catfish Hunter, and Rollie Fingers (Reggie Jackson: "We call him 'buzzard' because
he's off in his own world. Nothing bothers him. Him and that handlebar mustache of his--he's cool"). The dismantling
of the team by the mercurial and seemingly illogical Finley introduces a down note to this rollicking sports adventure.
When Finley died at age 77, few people from professional baseball attended the funeral. A pleasing slice of baseball
nostalgia that offers relevance to today's game.
Source Citation (MLA 8th
Edition)
"Turbow, Jason: DYNASTIC, BOMBASTIC, FANTASTIC." Kirkus Reviews, 1 Dec. 2016. General OneFile,
go.galegroup.com/ps/i.do?
p=ITOF&sw=w&u=schlager&v=2.1&id=GALE%7CA471902042&it=r&asid=9a2eef9f266aa70b8cef504fecbb34c2.
Accessed 2 Oct. 2017.
Gale Document Number: GALE|A471902042

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Dynastic, Bombastic, Fantastic: Reggie, Rollie,
Catfish, and Charlie Finley's Swingin' A's
Alan Moores
Booklist.
113.9-10 (Jan. 1, 2017): p28.
COPYRIGHT 2017 American Library Association
http://www.ala.org/ala/aboutala/offices/publishing/booklist_publications/booklist/booklist.cfm
Full Text:
Dynastic, Bombastic, Fantastic: Reggie, Rollie, Catfish, and Charlie Finley's Swingin' A's. By Jason Turbow. Mar.
2017. 432p. illus. HMH, $26 (9780544303171). 796.357.
The "dynasty" tag is ever elusive in baseball--ask the San Francisco Giants or Kansas City Royals of recent years--but
the supremely gifted, nearly ungovernable Oakland As assembled by the team's irascible, miserly owner Charles O.
Finley in the early 1970s probably qualifies, with three World Series wins in a row (1972-74), bookended by ALCS
losses in 1971 and 1975. The gang's all here, from Reggie Jackson to Sal Bando, Joe Rudi, Ben Campaneos, Catfish
Hunter, Blue Moon Odom, Vida Blue, Rollie Fingers, and their colorful, cunning manager, Dick Williams. Author
Turbow keeps the narrative flow moving while offering thumbnail backstories for the principals and just enough tidbits-
-a knife-wielding Campaneos going after Jackson at a "celebration" dinner the night of the team's 1973 championship
win--to give the book some pop. Entertaining reading for fans whose interest in baseball history extends back 40 years.-
-Alan Moores
Source Citation (MLA 8th
Edition)
Moores, Alan. "Dynastic, Bombastic, Fantastic: Reggie, Rollie, Catfish, and Charlie Finley's Swingin' A's." Booklist, 1
Jan. 2017, p. 28. General OneFile, go.galegroup.com/ps/i.do?
p=ITOF&sw=w&u=schlager&v=2.1&id=GALE%7CA479077912&it=r&asid=cc8f54e00addda19cc6417ccfeb62101.
Accessed 2 Oct. 2017.
Gale Document Number: GALE|A479077912

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Turbow, Jason with Michael Duca. The Baseball
Codes: Beanhalls, Sign Stealing, and BenchClearing
Brawls; The Unwritten Rules of
America's Pastime
Library Journal.
135.2 (Feb. 1, 2010): p74.
COPYRIGHT 2010 Library Journals, LLC. A wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution
permitted.
http://www.libraryjournal.com/
Full Text:
Turbow, Jason with Michael Duca. The Baseball Codes: Beanhalls, Sign Stealing, and Bench-Clearing Brawls; The
Unwritten Rules of America's Pastime. Pantheon. 2009. c.304p. index. ISBN 978-0-375-42469-4. $25.
Baseball's official rules can confuse. What about the unwritten cedes of play? They're a harsher set of principles,
lacking the charm or eccentric appeal of the official ones. We know some of these, e.g., never rub the spot where you've
been hit by a pitch. Turbew and Duca explain the evolution of these codes, with violations often unforgotten and
unforgiven by the opposing team. Remember when Rickey Henderson stole second late in a game when his team was
ahead 12-5, and he wasn't being held to the bag? A cheap steal for his stats. Code violation. While there are traces of
folklore and fair play here, much of this code culture simply comes across as disheartening aggression. But if you like
to study these realities of the game, this will appeal.
Source Citation (MLA 8th
Edition)
"Turbow, Jason with Michael Duca. The Baseball Codes: Beanhalls, Sign Stealing, and Bench-Clearing Brawls; The
Unwritten Rules of America's Pastime." Library Journal, 1 Feb. 2010, p. 74. General OneFile,
go.galegroup.com/ps/i.do?
p=ITOF&sw=w&u=schlager&v=2.1&id=GALE%7CA218370620&it=r&asid=cd44c51809e6a6bf9eb46a5b7cdb5b93.
Accessed 2 Oct. 2017.
Gale Document Number: GALE|A218370620

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The Baseball Codes: Beanballs, Sign Stealing
and Bench Clearing Brawls; The Unwritten Rules
of America's Pastime
Alan Moores
Booklist.
106.11 (Feb. 1, 2010): p13.
COPYRIGHT 2010 American Library Association
http://www.ala.org/ala/aboutala/offices/publishing/booklist_publications/booklist/booklist.cfm
Full Text:
The Baseball Codes: Beanballs, Sign Stealing and Bench Clearing Brawls; The Unwritten Rules of America's Pastime.
By Jason Turbow and Michael Duca.
Mar. 2010. 304p. Pantheon, $25 (9780375424694). 796.357.
Turbow and Duca have filled a void with this entertaining, revealing survey of the varied, sometimes inscrutable
unwritten rules that govern the way baseball is played by the pros. The authors add a lot of flavoring here by naming
names and instances, both long past and more recent. Great stuff on how and when to retaliate, how to slide, how to
give way to a relief pitcher, talking (or not) during a no-hitter, whether to join an on-field brawl (no question, you join
in), and the ethics of cheating (former Orioles manager Earl Weaver once told struggling pitcher Ross Grimsley during
a game: "If you know how to cheat, this would be a good time to start"). The authors--both write on baseball for
various publications, and Duca is an official scorekeeper for major league baseball--lament a certain unraveling of
baseball's codes, due to changes in the game itself, while insisting that they're still essentially intact. For committed
fans who want to dig deeper.--AAlan Moore
Moores, Alan
Source Citation (MLA 8th
Edition)
Moores, Alan. "The Baseball Codes: Beanballs, Sign Stealing and Bench Clearing Brawls; The Unwritten Rules of
America's Pastime." Booklist, 1 Feb. 2010, p. 13. General OneFile, go.galegroup.com/ps/i.do?
p=ITOF&sw=w&u=schlager&v=2.1&id=GALE%7CA219300213&it=r&asid=a2382d1100bd94412f91688a5b3a4bbd.
Accessed 2 Oct. 2017.
Gale Document Number: GALE|A219300213

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The Baseball Codes: Beanballs, Sign Stealing
and Bench-Clearing Brawls: The Unwritten
Rules of America's Pastime
Publishers Weekly.
257.2 (Jan. 11, 2010): p41.
COPYRIGHT 2010 PWxyz, LLC
http://www.publishersweekly.com/
Full Text:
The Baseball Codes: Beanballs, Sign Stealing and Bench-Clearing Brawls: The Unwritten Rules of America's Pastime
Jason Turnbow, with Michael Duca. Pantheon, $25 (304p) ISBN 978-0-375-42469-4
Nearly as long as baseball has existed in its current form, so too have unofficial rules that professional players have
strictly adhered to. Yet as Turnbow demonstrates in this highly entertaining read, every rule of the code has certain
variations. Most casual baseball fans are keenly aware of many topics that Turnbow broaches, and some are universally
agreed upon hitters ad miring home runs is severely frowned on, as is arguing with one's manager in public view and
being caught stealing signs. But other rules are less cut-and-dried. On the subject of retaliating for a teammate being hit
by a pitch: some believe the pitcher should be plunked in his next at-bat, while others say it should be a player with
corresponding talent to the hit batter. Turnbow has an example for nearly every conceivable situation, and with quotes
from dozens of former major league players, managers, and broadcasters, the reader can better understand the actions
that can set off even the most even-tempered ball player. It's a comprehensive, sometimes hilarious guide to perhaps a
misunderstood aspect of our national pastime, and will come in handy should one ever be involved in a beanball war.
(Mar.)
Source Citation (MLA 8th
Edition)
"The Baseball Codes: Beanballs, Sign Stealing and Bench-Clearing Brawls: The Unwritten Rules of America's
Pastime." Publishers Weekly, 11 Jan. 2010, p. 41. General OneFile, go.galegroup.com/ps/i.do?
p=ITOF&sw=w&u=schlager&v=2.1&id=GALE%7CA216631017&it=r&asid=ea2d147e2d03e9106e8fe3704e312c64.
Accessed 2 Oct. 2017.
Gale Document Number: GALE|A216631017

Palas, Gus. "Turbow, Jason. Dynastic, Bombastic, Fantastic: Reggie, Rollie, Catfish, and Charlie Finley's Swingin' A's." Library Journal, 15 Feb. 2017, p. 94. General OneFile, go.galegroup.com/ps/i.do? p=ITOF&sw=w&u=schlager&v=2.1&id=GALE%7CA481649135&it=r. Accessed 2 Oct. 2017. Williams, John C. "Celebrating the season of the cub." BookPage, Apr. 2017, p. 17. General OneFile, go.galegroup.com/ps/i.do?p=ITOF&sw=w&u=schlager&v=2.1&id=GALE%7CA490551624&it=r. Accessed 2 Oct. 2017. "Dynastic, Bombastic, Fantastic: Reggie, Rollie, Catfish, and Charlie Finley's Swingin' A's." Publishers Weekly, 9 Jan. 2017, p. 56. General OneFile, go.galegroup.com/ps/i.do? p=ITOF&sw=w&u=schlager&v=2.1&id=GALE%7CA477339333&it=r. Accessed 2 Oct. 2017. "Turbow, Jason: DYNASTIC, BOMBASTIC, FANTASTIC." Kirkus Reviews, 1 Dec. 2016. General OneFile, go.galegroup.com/ps/i.do? p=ITOF&sw=w&u=schlager&v=2.1&id=GALE%7CA471902042&it=r. Accessed 2 Oct. 2017. Moores, Alan. "Dynastic, Bombastic, Fantastic: Reggie, Rollie, Catfish, and Charlie Finley's Swingin' A's." Booklist, 1 Jan. 2017, p. 28. General OneFile, go.galegroup.com/ps/i.do? p=ITOF&sw=w&u=schlager&v=2.1&id=GALE%7CA479077912&it=r. Accessed 2 Oct. 2017. "Turbow, Jason with Michael Duca. The Baseball Codes: Beanhalls, Sign Stealing, and Bench-Clearing Brawls; The Unwritten Rules of America's Pastime." Library Journal, 1 Feb. 2010, p. 74. General OneFile, go.galegroup.com/ps/i.do? p=ITOF&sw=w&u=schlager&v=2.1&id=GALE%7CA218370620&it=r. Accessed 2 Oct. 2017. Moores, Alan. "The Baseball Codes: Beanballs, Sign Stealing and Bench Clearing Brawls; The Unwritten Rules of America's Pastime." Booklist, 1 Feb. 2010, p. 13. General OneFile, go.galegroup.com/ps/i.do? p=ITOF&sw=w&u=schlager&v=2.1&id=GALE%7CA219300213&it=r. Accessed 2 Oct. 2017. "The Baseball Codes: Beanballs, Sign Stealing and Bench-Clearing Brawls: The Unwritten Rules of America's Pastime." Publishers Weekly, 11 Jan. 2010, p. 41. General OneFile, go.galegroup.com/ps/i.do?p=ITOF&sw=w&u=schlager&v=2.1&id=GALE%7CA216631017&it=r. Accessed 2 Oct. 2017.

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‘Dynamic, Bombastic, Fantastic,’ by Jason Turbow
By Kevin Canfield Updated 4:56 pm, Wednesday, March 8, 2017

"Dynastic, Bombastic, Fantastic" Photo: HMH
Photo: HMH
IMAGE 1 OF 2 "Dynastic, Bombastic, Fantastic"

In October 1972, Sparky Anderson, the manager of the Cincinnati Reds, was asked about his team’s preparations for the World Series, which was due to start later that week. How did the newly crowned National League champions match up against the Oakland A’s, the scrappy club that had taken the American League title in a tense five-game tilt against the Detroit Tigers? Actually, Anderson said, he wasn’t sure what to think just yet — he’d been pulling for the other guys. “I really would have liked to play the Tigers,” he said. “They’re much more predictable. Gee whiz, you don’t know what these A’s are going to do.”
The protocol of competitive sports suggests that the Reds’ skipper should have been a little less forthright. You don’t go around saying you’d clobber one team but fear another. Anderson, though, was only admitting what a lot of his peers were probably thinking. As Jason Turbow reminds us in his carefully researched and often hilarious new book, the A’s, in the first half of the 1970s, were as wild a bunch as Major League Baseball had seen in decades. They were also immensely talented.
Resplendent in green and gold polyester V-necks and sporting some of the finest mustaches this side of a Burt Reynolds film, the team reeled off three consecutive World Series wins. They were the first to do so since the early ’50s Yankees. All the while, they fought tirelessly among themselves — in the locker room, on the field and in the pages of Bay Area newspapers. “Well, that’s it,” third baseman Sal Bando said one day in 1974, having just broken up a clubhouse brawl between teammates Billy North and Reggie Jackson. “We’re definitely going to win big tonight.”
The A’s heyday is rich with story lines, but Turbow doesn’t just focus on the winning years. An East Bay resident and the author of a 2010 book about the sport’s unwritten rules (“The Baseball Codes”), he’s just as interested in the eras that bookended Oakland’s championships in 1972, ’73 and ’74. Accordingly, “Dynastic, Bombastic, Fantastic” is structured like a classic three-act drama: The rise, reign and fall of the House of Oakland, as recalled by the men who swung the bats, sprouted the sideburns and threw the punches.
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In a story full of complex personalities, Turbow’s unchallenged antihero is the man who selected the ballplayers and paid their wages. Charlie Finley, a self-made insurance magnate, bought the Kansas City A’s in 1960. “In 1964,” Turbow writes, “the A’s signed 80 players for about $650,000 — the most ever spent by one team on amateur talent in a single year.” By the time he moved the team to Northern California — the A’s played their first home game in the Oakland Coliseum on April 17, 1968 — Finley had assembled a young core that included Jackson, Bando, ace right-hander Catfish Hunter and reliever Rollie Fingers.

A classic control fanatic, Finley acted as his own general manager, which was unorthodox enough. Even more unusual was the degree to which he orchestrated every aspect of the team’s affairs, doling out petty punishments along the way. “When it became clear that attendance in Oakland would touch only about 900,000” in 1971, Turbow writes, “Finley abruptly canceled Fan Appreciation Day and barred his players from participating in a 1,000-seat civic luncheon scheduled in their honor.” He was alternately profligate and miserly. Finley once offered Vida Blue a $2,000 bonus in a failed attempt to persuade the pitcher to adopt a rhyming nickname (“True” Blue). But when it came time to buy his players championship rings after their second and third World Series wins, Turbow says, he opted for “green glass in place of diamonds.”
Some of Finley’s players were just as mercurial. Those that weren’t tended to get caught up in the chaos of the A’s clubhouse. Physical altercations were so common — by my count, there are at least a half dozen in these pages, including one in which “Finley swiped at” and cut a reporter’s face — that when shortstop Bert “Campaneris grabbed a table knife and went after” Jackson during a team dinner in 1973, nobody got worked up about it.
“Dynastic, Bombastic, Fantastic” has plenty to offer fans both serious and casual. Turbow does a wonderful job of describing how the game “slows down” when a hitter is “in the zone,” as Tenace was when he hit four homers in the ’72 Series. And because he spent so much time interviewing the players themselves — he chatted with one ex-A in a rental car, accompanied another to a doctor’s office and visited Mount Rushmore with a third — Turbow has unearthed new perspectives on brief but important chapters in team history. After Israeli athletes were killed by terrorists during the 1972 Summer Olympics, he writes, first baseman Mike Epstein and pitcher Ken Holtzman, both of whom are Jewish, added black armbands to their uniform tops, wearing them “right on into the playoffs.”

This is also a very funny book, especially if you read Turbow’s many footnotes. Though the A’s won a lot, being in Oakland didn’t help when it came to landing endorsement contracts. Which is why, he writes, “Tenace and Bando pounced on one of the few opportunities that came their way, from a toupee shop in Manhattan — the primary payment being free replacement hair.” Another footnote finds two A’s in an amusing fish-out-of-water setting: “Holtzman scanned newspapers to find the local bridge club in a given city where he, Fingers, and (Oakland Tribune writer Ron) Bergman would go for games. ‘We’d be the only three guys there, major leaguers playing against 85-year-old women,’ Holtzman said.”
Turbow devotes the last few chapters to the A’s decline, a period during which players were lost to free agency and bad trades. They reached the playoffs in 1975, but would close out the decade with three consecutive losing seasons. Even in the good days, the Coliseum was rarely full, but by 1979, the situation was ridiculous. That year, the A’s lost twice as many games as they won, he writes, “and Coliseum attendance submarined to 306,763, or 3,787 per game.” A mid-April game drew fewer than 700. The A’s would win again in the 1980s, but as the ’70s closed, Turbow notes, they “were essentially a rubble pile.”
Kevin Canfield has written for Bookforum, Film Comment and other publications. Email: books@sfchronicle.com

Dynamic, Bombastic, Fantastic
Reggie, Rollie, Catfish, and Charlie Finley’s Swingin’ A’s
By Jason Turbow
(Houghton Mifflin Harcourt; 386 pages; $26)
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SUNDAY BOOK REVIEW

Honor Among Base Stealers
By BRUCE WEBERMARCH 25, 2010
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Professional baseball is a society, of sorts, and “The Baseball Codes” is a book of casual sociology. The premise is that ballplayers, managers, coaches and various other participants in the culture of baseball are all clued in to a value system, a mode of behavior that defines a gauzy ideal: the right way to play the game.

That phrase in itself needs explaining. If you’re not fluent in sportspeak, you might think the right way to play would involve skills — techniques for a hitter’s taking the outside pitch to the opposite field, say. Or maybe it would involve rules. But no. As the savvy fan knows, the right way to play refers to being a proper baseball citizen — that is, showing respect for your opponents, your teammates and the game itself, whether or not you hit .300 or your team makes it to the World Series.

Jason Turbow and Michael Duca, obvious baseball obsessives from the San Francisco Bay Area, have collected dozens of stories from baseball history about situations that are not governed by the rule book but that pertain to the fuzzy notions of rightness and respect and that describe the contours of the so-called baseball codes. When is it legitimate for a pitcher to knock down a hitter? When is it unsportsmanlike for a base runner to steal a base? Spitballs may not be legal, but are they ethical? Why might a player lie to his manager? Is it ever O.K. not to join your teammates when a brawl starts on the field? And how about stealing your opponent’s signs? Is it proper? Always? Are some methods of thievery more tolerable than others?

For true baseball-niks, the discussions of these issues won’t be especially enlightening. With so many former athletes now in the broadcast booth, the unwritten rules of the game get a pretty regular airing. (Disappointingly for a book that devotes a substantial section to cheating, there is no discussion at all of steroid use.) But the stories the authors have unearthed to illustrate ballpark justice and morality are often delicious.

It won’t be news, for example, that when your team is ahead by seven runs in the eighth inning, it’s bad form to swing at a 3-0 pitch. (For the unimmersed: The pitcher will most likely throw the ball right down the middle in order to get a strike, and taking advantage of this when your team is way ahead is considered rubbing it in.) To do so is to invite retribution; sometime soon — that inning, the next inning, tomorrow’s game — the opposing team’s pitcher will be aiming a fastball at you or a teammate.

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But it is entertaining to learn that in 2006, Torii Hunter, the splendid outfielder then with the Minnesota Twins (he now plays for the Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim), made just that mistake against the Boston Red Sox. And that after the game, to palliate the feelings of their opponents and prevent an act of revenge, the Twins’ manager, Ron Gardenhire, brought Hunter to the Red Sox clubhouse, like a parent teaching a 6-year-old a lesson, to apologize to the team’s manager, Terry Francona.

Gardenhire is quoted as having said that he wanted Francona “to know we didn’t give a sign for him to swing away, that Torii just made a mistake.” He added, “I thought that it was good for Torii to explain it to him, so I took him over.”

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The authors offer stories like this in a spirit of romanticism, as though matters of violating and adhering to the codes of the game were enmeshed in its glorious tradition. But readers who are lesser fans may have limited tolerance for such minor episodes of baseball life, especially since what is collectively revealed is how thin-skinned, pouty, childish, vulgar and vengeful the baseball codes condition participants to be. The main dictum seems to be that even though you’re trying to beat your opponents’ brains in, you have to do it in a mannerly fashion, and if you don’t, you’re dead meat.

How players follow this principle takes some interesting forms, and in many places “The Baseball Codes” reads like a lab report by a psychologist who has been observing hostile toddlers whack one another with plastic shovels in a sandbox. Nolan Ryan was so put off if a batter dared to bunt and make him field his position, the authors write, that he’d knock him down with his 100-mile-per-hour fastball.

If a hitter smacks a home run and stands a little too long in the batter’s box admiring his feat, the pitcher — it doesn’t matter who — may be so ticked off that he’ll take the next opportunity to drill the guy. Ditto if a hitter tries to sneak a peek at the catcher’s signs. If one of your teammates is hit with a pitch, it’s incumbent on you, as a pitcher, to retaliate and nail one of their guys.

Bob Gibson settled a grudge against one player 15 years after the fact, hitting him with a pitch in an old-timers’ game. In 1976, Frank Robinson, then a player-manager with the Cleveland Indians, sent a pitcher, Bob Reynolds, to the Toledo Mud Hens, a minor-league affiliate, and when the Indians played the Mud Hens in an exhibition game, Reynolds, still miffed, threw a pitch over Robinson’s head.

“Robinson’s response wasn’t standard fare for most management types,” the authors write. “After grounding out, he walked to the mound and punched Reynolds twice, felling him with the second blow.” No punishment for Robinson was forthcoming. The general manager of the Indians shrugged off the event. “Things like this happen in baseball from time to time,” he said.

THE BASEBALL CODES
Beanballs, Sign Stealing, and Bench-Clearing Brawls: The Unwritten Rules of America’s Pastime
By Jason Turbow with Michael Duca
294 pp. Pantheon Books. $25
Bruce Weber, a reporter at The Times, is the author of “As They See ’Em: A Fan’s Travels in the Land of Umpires,” which has just been published in paperback.

A version of this review appears in print on March 28, 2010, on Page BR8 of the Sunday Book Review with the headline: Honor Among Base Stealers. Today's Paper|Subscribe

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