It Ain't Cheating If You Don't Get Caught

by Dan Gutman

Profiles the players whose antics on the field have made a mockery of baseball's integrity, from the base-skipping Orioles of the 1890s to the spitball throwers of today

Genres: Baseball, Sports

256 pages, Paperback

First published March 1, 1990

About the author

The author of over 80 books in a little over a decade of writing, Dan Gutman has written on topics from computers to baseball. Beginning his freelance career as a nonfiction author dealing mostly with sports for adults and young readers, Gutman has concentrated on juvenile fiction since 1995. His most popular titles include the time-travel sports book Honus and Me and its sequels, and a clutch of baseball books, including The Green Monster from Left Field. From hopeful and very youthful presidential candidates to stunt men, nothing is off limits in Gutman's fertile imagination. As he noted on his author Web site, since writing his first novel, They Came from Centerfield, in 1994, he has been hooked on fiction. "It was fun to write, kids loved it, and I discovered how incredibly rewarding it is to take a blank page and turn it into a WORLD."

Gutman was born in New York City in 1955, but moved to Newark, New Jersey the following year and spent his youth there.

Reviews

[Joan · Rating 3 out of 5]

Gutman wrote an entertaining book about cheating. His thesis seemed to be that baseball is a game of faking out the other players and that it is winked at by everyone in the sport, or nearly everyone. He tells about one player who refused to play for a team that cheated and got traded 4 times in the next 4 years. Hard to tell if that was just a story or if other issues were involved! He has an umpire he talked to who claimed that if he had called on a particular type of cheating, the American League would have been furious. Gutman also got serious and speculated about how these cheaters rationalized it to themselves, as well as how the religious ones rationalized it. Basically, his answer was pretty much “everyone does it, so it’s not really cheating”. Btw if you’re wondering where Gutman got his info from, a lot of baseball pros wrote up their careers after they were retired and couldn’t be penalized! It sounds like the infamous Ty Cobb was intensely disliked not for being a cheater (which he was) but for being mean. Gutman says 3 baseball people bothered to show up at his funeral and there were editorials that more or less said good riddance.

This was an entertaining look at a sport that likely has too much money in it. Enjoyable read.

[Monsieur Rick Blaine · Rating 5 out of 5]

Everything you would ever want to know about cheating or what teams managers players call "getting an edge". From keeping their infield grass high to slow down grounders at Wrigley field to corking bats... its all explained in graphic detail. What you never would think of as getting that "edge" is brilliantly explained in this book. Highly recommended for those inside baseball fanatics.

[H (trying to keep up with GR friends) Balikov · Rating 3 out of 5]

If you thought that the steroids scandal took baseball to a new low, you don't know much of the history of the major leagues the way they were. Gutman did his research and knows how to string the anecdotes together.

[Eric Denny · Rating 3 out of 5]

By the way, this book is about baseball, not sex. The subtitle is "Scuffing, Corking, Spitting, Gunking, Razzing, and Other Fundamentals of Our National Pastime." Good read.

[Ron Thomas · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is the best expose of the ways baseball always tries to "get an edge". You would not believe the facts in this book! From the Cubs keeping the grass long to slow down the ball for their infielders to so many, dozens upon dozens of examples of players, owners, management, coaches... all trying to "cheat" the game. Not exactly cheating, but just fudging enough to not get caught.

Not a put down of the game, but realize what you are watching on TV or at the stadium. It is totally INSIDE baseball. I would read it again and I can't say that about autobiographies of most celebrities.

[Terrence · Rating 1 out of 5]

The main idea of the book i read talks about baseball players that are in the major league.The point of the book was to talk about many diffrent players and how they are diffrent and what they are good at.

The great cobb once called baseball as ungentlemanly as a kick in the croctch.In this book vastly entertaining book,Dan Gutman argues that cheating and deception have always been a fundamental part of the game begginning with the ludicrous fiction that Abner doubleday invented it.

This book reminds me of when i watched the movie called hard ball.If you were interested in the movie hard ball you would be interested in this book.The narrator basically talks about the same thing.

Book takes place in The early Days(The baltimore oriles of the 1880s were arguably the dirtiest team ever.This was on of the teams that had good people but they were dirty.

The richly anecdotal and peppered with great quotes,this book explres the deep lore of the base ballcheating,nothing its importance in defining and developing the game.

I would recommand this book to people who like to read poems or like baseball.This book didnt have a good ending because it didnt give alot of information about what happen at the game.

[Dale Stonehouse · Rating 3 out of 5]

If you can ignore numerous typos and factual mistakes this is an enjoyable look at all the ways baseball players try to get an advantage, excepting steroids, which were not in the public knowledge at the time. It made me wonder if intentionally getting myself thrown out of a game to get the plate umpire to call even one strike for my team qualifies as cheating. Especially since I could not have played at all after splitting a pitching finger to the bone the day before.