The Baseball Codes, the Unwritten Rules of Baseball

I am reading The Baseball Codes, the Unwritten Rules of Baseball, by Jason Turbow with Michael Duca. This book is fantastic in my opinion, I think meant for grownups with the more sophisticated language. But I understand it and it's great. The book is about well, the unwritten rules of baseball, which are rules that all the players know about, but the rules are not written in some book (except for this one).

An example, well, one of my favorite examples is when a pitcher is going for a no hitter (when a pitcher does not give up one hit in an entire game, this is good for the pitcher) and then there are two outs in the bottom of the ninth inning and the next batter comes up and thinks, "Oh, I'll give him this no hitter". So he takes the first two pitches for strikes, then is going to get out to be soft for the pitcher, when a ball comes screaming at his head. He falls to the ground, and barely avoids it. (I really, really love how much and how often pitchers express themselves by trying to hit the batter with some blazing fastball) The next pitch, however, the hitter knocks the ball over the left field fence to break up the no-hitter. After the game the hitter said, "I was going to give it to him, I really was, until he tried to hit me in the head". This example was funny for me because really, the hitter was just going to go soft, but then a attempted beanball made his thoughts go askew, and then he was mad.

I didn't know that behind those baseball caps, there is something else going on in pro baseball player's heads. And that is the unwritten rules in baseball. Many people in the MLB get furious at some dekes, as they call them. These are just some plays the players do to trick out other players to help their team do better. If I were that player who deked another player out, I'd be kind of scared, because the next time I came to the plate, the pitcher would be hunting for my head. About headhunters, when a baserunner gets bullied or deked, he then tells the pitcher, and the pitcher knocks him off his feet, and goes for a head shot. That's what is so interesting, baseball is so nasty between the players and that's what makes this book the best baseball book ever!