Sacramento Valley Mirror
Local ump's new
book more than just spells it out
By Doug Ross
Contributing
editor
Second of two
parts
Willows — "Opinions are not rules."
That's the
heart-and-soul message central to Glenn County author James C. Bettencourt's
second published book, Baseball Rules in Black and White: Difficult High
School Baseball Rules Made Easy. Lulu Publishing now has it available on
shelves in many locations, and through websites such as Google, Amazon,
e-books.
His wife,
Kristel, is adviser and co-collaborator for the work, which in the long run
would like to help bring baseball rulebooks at all levels from the historic
micro-type and confusing multiple-references era, into large-print readability
augmented by illustrations.
"Each
mid-winter," begins the introduction, "umpires everywhere knock the
dust off the old baseball rule book and with painful hesitation begin the hours
ahead of randomly searching through six font verbiage and many dozens of
assorted rule numbers.
"After
five minutes it becomes clear that it is still the same misery laden rule book.
So, back the rulebook goes where it came from and back to the football game on
television we go.
"This year
I told myself it was going to be different. I was going to open that rulebook
and delve into it like my grandson consumes an ice cream."
Those arguably
ancient books are "randomly formatted, with multiple rule numbers listed
inside a rule definition, and unfriendly grammar," he added. "To top
it off, instead of a table of contents it has all of the rules jammed into four
pages, again tiny font with no page numbers for finding a rule. The root of the
problem is the format of the National Federation High School baseball rule
book."
For his book,
Mr. Bettencourt targeted 16 of the rules he felt were "the most
troublesome, difficult, confusing, and frequently-called rules in baseball, but
the majority of them are often called incorrectly." He extracted over 150
rulings, examples, and summaries. Especially considering how fast on the
diamond a disputed call can escalate into a donnybrook, he feels his book
provides "a faster and easier way to locate rules."
For over five
decades, the author has either played, coached, or umpired baseball at many
levels. He is going into his 17th year of umpiring, which has included for
Little League, men and women's softball, American Legion, Joe DiMaggio, Pony,
high schools, universities spring and fall ball, and San Francisco Bay Area
semi-pro leagues.
"I've
umpired hundreds of games," he noted, "including in Glenn, Colusa,
Tehama, and Butte Counties."
On Sunday, Aug.
14 this year, he umped a contest in a Silicon Valley men's baseball league at
Leland High School field, "very competitive," he observed, "with
40 to 50 teams. They wear major league baseball-like uniforms, such as the Mets
and the Rockies."
The pitcher in
this one particular game had played for the Fresno Giants, minor league
affiliate of the San Francisco Giants before the SF club made the Triple-A
Sacramento River Cats its farm team.
"Amid the
game," he said, "the batter was up to bat. I was doing the bases. The
pitcher throws a pitch off-speed. It was inside. The guy was crowding the plate
and the ball hit him. He started to trot to first base.
"My
partner, umpiring at home plate, called a "ball" and stopped him,
saying, 'You didn't make an effort to not get hit.' My partner stuck to
his guns, he wasn't intimidated by who believes the rules are one way, but actually
are the other. The batter then grounded out."
That play
paralleled an historic call when Don Drysdale of the Los Angeles Dodgers in
1968 was en route to his record-setting 58 2/3 consecutive scoreless innings.
Dick Dietz,
catcher for the Giants, was up to bat with the bases loaded and no outs. He was
hit by a pitch, apparently ending Drysdale's streak short of the record.
However, home
plate ump Harry Wendelstedt, citing a rule rarely enforced at that time,
refused to allow Dietz to take first base, on the basis that the batter had not
attempted to avoid being struck by the ball.
Drysdale then
retired Dietz and the next two batters, keeping his streak alive. (Orel
Hershiser of the Dodgers was to set a new record 20 years later, in 1988,
hurling 59 consecutive scoreless frames).
Just this year,
Mr. Bettencourt was umpiring a high school baseball sectional contest between
Yreka and Gridley High Schools.
A batter got on
base. The pitcher went to the set position. "I called a balk," he
said, "on the pitcher for his foot not being properly positioned on the
pitcher's plate, the rulebook saying the entire foot must be in contact with
the pitcher's plate.
"I
directed the runner on first to go to 2nd. The Yreka head coach, on whose
team the balk was called, claimed that a Yreka umpire had said the pitcher's
foot position the way it was, was completely legal, and claimed the Yreka ump
had 'shown him the illustrations.'
"However,
there were no such illustrations. I said 'it's a balk' and told the Yreka
coach, 'whatever the Yreka ump told you, was wrong.'"
One of the
graphics in his new book geometrically depicts exactly how a pitcher's foot
should be positioned.
Said Mrs.
Bettencourt enthusiastically, "We're making up a poster for the book for
the American Baseball Coaches Association convention in January in Anaheim.
There will be 5,000 coaches there!"
Mr.
Bettencourt's first book is America’s Choice – America’s Shame: The Reality
of America’s War on Drugs: Your Children, Your Family, Your Nation.
