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.