The Cheater's Guide To Baseball

By Derek Zumsteg

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.

• Language: English
• Publisher: HarperCollins
• Release date: Nov 11, 2014
• ISBN: 9780547525105

Derek Zumsteg

Derek Zumsteg has cowritten five editions of the best-selling Baseball Prospectus annual. He also contributes to ESPN.com.

Reviews for The Cheater's Guide To Baseball

[dvf1976 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

This book was great. Between the cheating by groundskeepers, the section on Billy Martin, and especially his take on Pete Rose (if his impropriety was a car crash vs. taking steroids):"I admitted that I hit your car ... Can't we stop this witch-hunt and get on with our lives?"