Introduction: Toward a philosophy of cheating Is cheating wrong? Should you even read this book? Isnt this topic so controversial and heated that you should purchase several copies of this book in case one or more suddenly combust? Or, if youre of a moralistic bent, so that youll always have a copy to throw on the next bonfire? You certainly should. But this is a more serious question that deserves a longer and more considerate answer. While the realists among us may recognize that if cheating isnt your game, then baseball is not your sport, many look at cheating of any kind as distasteful, and it turns them away from the national pastime. This is unfortunate because it overlooks some of the subtlety that makes baseball and its long, fruitful relationship with cheating so interesting. For instance: Everything thats called cheating is not cheating. All cheating is not morally objectionable. A particular act of cheating may not be entirely right or entirely wrong there is a great deal of room for personal interpretation. Where a person draws the line between cheating and not cheating tells us as much about that person as whether they draw a line at all. For much of baseballs history, baseball was war. A player would run over his own mother if she was blocking home plate and not help her back up. For a long period in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, there was no trick so dirty that it didnt occur to someone. Whole stadiums colluded on elaborate cheating schemes. Visiting teams were lucky to win and luckier still if they could get out of town before the locals caught up to them. The will of the players fueled the rough play. For much of baseballs history, nearly every player was on a year-to-year deal, and the slightest sign of weakness meant a cut in the next years salary. More important, a player might more than double his salary by getting to the postseason, and each team faced each other team trying to take food off their table sixteen times a year. That kind of familiarity bred hate. The most heated team rivalries today dont compare to the kind of brutal conflicts fought on the diamond in the 1890s, when pennants were won with pitching, defense, timely hitting, and blood. Baseball has changed as it has cleaned itself up and become more professional. Today, only the players making the league minimum might even look at the extra money theyd receive from a World Series win and think free car. With more teams in each league, and with interleague play, most teams play each other for only three short series over the course of a season. A hard slide into second in one game is unlikely to be remembered when they next meet. As baseball has evolved, its become a much slower, thoughtful affair. Fans watch not only the duel between pitcher and hitter, but also the positioning of the fielders as they try to move to where they think theyre most likely to be able to make a play on a batted ball. Spectators also try to anticipate Excerpted from The Cheater's Guide to Baseball by Derek Zumsteg All rights reserved by the original copyright owners. Excerpts are provided for display purposes only and may not be reproduced, reprinted or distributed without the written permission of the publisher.
