The dying art of the hidden-ball trick dates back to the early days of pro baseball, with seven successful executions documented in 1876 alone. This ruse occurs when a baseman conceals the ball instead of returning it to the pitcher. When the runner steps off the base, he is summarily tagged out with the hidden ball. The trick has been used some 264 times with success, a rarity roughly in the class of the no-hitter. The hidden-ball trick has produced many hilarious stories throughout the years, and even enjoyed a renaissance of sorts in 2013 when it was employed twice late in the season. In Finding the Hidden-Ball Trick: The Colorful History of Baseball’s Oldest Ruse, every known execution of the hidden-ball trick in the major leagues is documented, compiled from decades of research. This book recounts how the hidden-ball trick has completed triple plays, ended games, resulted in two arrests, cost a Hall of Famer a managing job, and even occurred in a World Series. Stories include how Fred Merkle gained revenge on Johnny Evers, how Gary Carter was caught to end a game—on his birthday—and how Lou Boudreau was nabbed the day after saying the play was obsolete. In addition to a complete chronological listing of every documented ruse, Finding the Hidden-Ball Trick also includes descriptions of tricks that went awry and a list of unsubstantiated accounts. This unique compilation of baseball stories will be of interest to baseball scholars and fans alike.

Since its inception, it seems that baseball's rules were made to be broken. 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.

Through many years of research, Bill Deane has documented 260 successful hidden-ball tricks--putting the rarity of the play roughly in the class of the no-hitter. Along the way, he has collected the often-hilarious stories of these plays and the men who pulled them.

A fascinating and charming encyclopedic collection of baseball firsts, describing how the innovations in the game—in rules, equipment, styles of play, strategies, etc.—occurred and developed from its origins to the present day. The book relies heavily on quotations from contemporary sources.

Baseball fans can enjoy fascinating stories about great plays and controversial calls on the diamond, all while testing their own knowledge of the game. Is there a limit to a bat’s length and weight? If a batter swings for his third strike and misses, but the ball gets away from the catcher, can he still run to first? Or is he out? And what happens if the wrong batter comes up to hit—and the right player suddenly realizes that they’re out of order? Through a series of true tales, find out about little-known rules of pitching, batting, and fielding, as well as weird situations that have occurred, smart strategies for winning, and funny things have taken place over the years.

An insider’s look at baseball’s unwritten rules, explained with examples from the game’s most fascinating characters and wildest historical moments. Everyone knows that baseball is a game of intricate regulations, but it turns out to be even more complicated than we realize. All aspects of baseball—hitting, pitching, and baserunning—are affected by the Code, a set of unwritten rules that governs the Major League game. Some of these rules are openly discussed (don’t steal a base with a big lead late in the game), while others are known only to a minority of players (don’t cross between the catcher and the pitcher on the way to the batter’s box). In The Baseball Codes, old-timers and all-time greats share their insights into the game’s most hallowed—and least known—traditions. For the learned and the casual baseball fan alike, the result is illuminating and thoroughly entertaining. At the heart of this book are incredible and often hilarious stories involving national heroes (like Mickey Mantle and Willie Mays) and notorious headhunters (like Bob Gibson and Don Drysdale) in a century-long series of confrontations over respect, honor, and the soul of the game. With The Baseball Codes, we see for the first time the game as it’s actually played, through the eyes of the players on the field. With rollicking stories from the past and new perspectives on baseball’s informal rulebook, The Baseball Codes is a must for every fan.

Can't get enough of the Packers? Discover a unique and fascinating historical survey of Green Bay's early town football teams. Colorful accounts of individual team members, descriptions of significant games, fan and community reactions, and snippets of actual newspaper stories will take you on the a journey from 1895 to the day in 1921 when the Packers became founding members of the National Football League. Included are photographs of Green Bay town teams and some of their earliest opponents.

Hidden Ball Trick: The Baseball Stats You Never Thought To Look For goes year-by-year throughout the history of baseball, starting with the founding of the National League in 1876 until the end of the Dead Ball Era in 1919. With a few pages dedicated to each season, Hidden Ball Trick tells a near century-and-a-half long story about baseball's history through it's craziest stats, wildest events, and mindblowing seasons starting with the Dead Ball Era.One doesn't have to be a statistics professor to appreciate the game from a numerical perspective; Hidden Ball Trick's simplicity appeals to everyone from a baseball card collecting little leaguer who grew up watching Mike Trout play, to their 80-year-old grandparent who had the same connection to Willie Mays. Written by a teenager and a cable guy who share a love for the world's greatest sport, Hidden Ball Trick is sure to be enjoyable and informative to anyone who loves the game of baseball.

The definitive work on the language of baseball—one of the “Five Best Baseball Books” (Wall Street Journal). Hailed as “a staggering piece of scholarship” (Wall Street Journal) and “an indispensable guide to the language of baseball” (San Diego Union-Tribune), The Dickson Baseball Dictionary has become an invaluable resource for those who love the game. Drawing on dozens of nineteenth- and early twentieth-century periodicals, as well as contemporary sources, Dickson’s brilliant, illuminating definitions trace the earliest appearances of terms both well known and obscure. This edition includes more than 10,000 terms with 18,000 individual entries, and more than 250 photos. This “impressively comprehensive” (The Nation) book will delight everyone from the youngest fan to the hard-core aficionado.

Baseline Selling - How to Become a Sales Superstar by Using What You Already Know About the Game of Baseball, will dramatically change the way we approach the sales process, replacing the gratuitous complexity advocated by today's sales "experts" with an elegant and very effective simplicity. Studies have shown that the selling techniques of the last two decades have had very little impact on most of the sales population less than 75 percent of all salespeople, to be exact. Why? Because of the complexity, learning curve and difficulty in applying the concepts in these systems. In response to the urgent need for a flexible, innovative process that will enable people to grasp the essential skills necessary to close a sale in any situation, Baseline Selling reemphasizes the fundamentals of selling in a fresh, memorable way that modern sales professionals can relate to and utilize, and above all, one that complements and enriches advanced sales methodologies. Salespeople who read this book and put its wisdom to work will succeed at acquiring more opportunities as they learn to get appointments more easily. They will excel at creating opportunities with prospects who are "not interested". They'll sell at higher margins by using the "Rule of Ratios". Their closing percentages will improve dramatically as they implement the simple Inoffensive Close". Salespeople selling commodities, struggling to differentiate themselves, will love "Commodity Busters" and every salesperson will be able to shorten their sell cycle by "Taking a Lead". Quite simply, Baseline Selling introduces a way for salespeople to visualize and touch all the "sales bases" without over-complicating the process.