Um, shall we discuss plate blocking? No?

This is nonsense and we all know it. The unwritten rulebook of MLB is enforced way more often than the actual rulebook. Why pretend this isn't the case. I would go further and say that the unwritten rulebook of MLB is the rulebook while the other thing is something that nobody reads or looks at or refers to or even acknowledges that it exists.

The first unwritten rule of Unwritten Rulebook is you do not write about Unwritten Rulebook.

#3: niiiiice!

How someone on this site has not started the official unwritten rule book of MLB is beyond me. Seems like it would be a fine companion piece to the Hall of Merit.

1. No crying.

Never mind.

I've read enough times on this site how the cardinal unwritten rule of baseball is that the Yankees always get the calls. So why is anyone objecting to the safe call?

How someone on this site has not started the official unwritten rule book of MLB is beyond me. Seems like it would be a fine companion piece to the Hall of Merit.


It's been done

More than once

also, here

It's been done
More than once
also, here

Right, but he means the way we do it here, BTF-threadstyle, yo.

Somebody also wrote a book about the Unwritten books about baseball.

It's been done

Here's a quote from the Amazon page for that book

I remember once during a lopsided game with the Cubs, Doug Dascenzo laid down a suicide squeeze on me in like the eighth inning.... So while he was running to first base, I drilled him right in the back. It had to hurt. As far as I was concerned, they were trying to embarrass me and my teammates, so I did what I thought was necessary to retaliate and send a message." --Baseball analyst and former "Nasty Boy" Rob Dibble

This happened on Jul 23, 1991

b8 1 --3 R 5,(2-2) CBFB.X 2% 98% 6-4 CHC D. Dascenzo R. Dibble Reached on E1 (throw)/Sacrifice Bunt (Bunt to Short 1B Line); Wilkins Scores; Dascenzo to 2B/Adv on throw


Dibble's an ass. The score at the time was 6-4, hardly a blowout. Dacsenzo later came around to score. Way to help your team #######. But at least he upheld the code.

I like unwritten rules. I like phantom tags and the ball beat the runner out calls and that stealing signs is part of the game but a batter who peaks back at the catcher's signs can expect one in the ribs.

I think the implementation of a separate set of rules that the players themselves follow (and, sometimes disagree over) make for a more interesting and entertaining game. And that, more than fairness or perfection or consistency, is what I'm looking for as a baseball fan.

Right, but he means the way we do it here, BTF-threadstyle, yo.

Sorry, didn't mean to spoil the fun.

Completely agree #13. Only "unwritten" rule I really don't agree with is the phantom "touched the bag" on doubleplays. Baseball is fun in large part due to it's history. Unwritten rules and customs are part of that history.

Completely agree #13. Only "unwritten" rule I really don't agree with is the phantom "touched the bag" on doubleplays. Baseball is fun in large part due to it's history. Unwritten rules and customs are part of that history.

Yeah, I have problems with unwritten rules that directly contradict the written ones.

Was the "no black guys" rule ever written down? Maybe Jackie Robinson took so much abuse because he violated an unwritten rule, and not because of the color of his skin. History has misjudged Ben Chapman.

...a batter who peaks back at the catcher's signs can expect one in the ribs

Isn't that actually a written rule? Well, not the fastball in the ribs, but I thought that batters weren't allowed to look at the catcher's signs.

Um, no.

I've always assumed some of the "unwritten rules" (like the phantom tag of second and the ball beating the runner) were born out of umpires having to make bang-bang play rulings. I felt if an umpire watched a second baseman miss second base with his foot he would call the play safe - but in all the motion of a double play the umpire was going to give credit if he saw the foot move to the base in the blur. Similarily with the ball beating the runner - without benefit of instant replay if the ball beat the runner and the tag was too close to call you give the benefit of doubt to the fielder not because you believe in ties but because you are human and the play was really too close to call.

I watched that slide by Holliday last year a bajillion times on replay and I still don't know what to call it. I can't imagine having to do it on the spot with only one showing.

I think the point to the unwritten rules was never to override the rulebook but more a convention when it is just not humanly possible to see everything that happens in front of you in minute detail.

Another (and important) unwritten rule is to deny the existence of unwritten rules. The ump's adherence to and affirmation thereof that core unwritten rule is absolute proof that the umps ALWAYS allow the neighborhood play, and the ump missed the call in this case because he didn't see the player straddling the bag..evidently thought he was nowhere near the bag.

If an unwritten rule cuts the cheese in the desert, is a phantom umpire obliged to smell it and call the runner out?

The problem with invoking "unwritten rules" is that they're not something you can count on being consistently enforced, and that to whine about selective enforcement is both futile and pointless. And unless you feel like going through tens of thousands of videotaped games to "prove" some paranoid thesis about your personal White Whale team "getting all the calls," all you're doing is howling at the moon.

The surest rule about unwritten rules is this: Fanboys only remember the times when they work against their favorite team, either by enforcement or non-enforcement. They forget the 50% of the times that their team benefits from them.

Of course I know that saying this only proves that I'm either naive, or a witting accomplice to the Great Conspiracy. Goes with the territory.