Baseball's Answer Key, It's Awesome

Remember back when you were in school, the first day when you approached the teacher and while looking down on the desk you could hardly believe what your eyes were seeing. Yes, as unbelievable as it seemed there it was. The answer key.

Seeing that answer key was a life changing experience that caused me to reflect on many levels. First, was my teacher not that smart after all?  Second, where could I get a copy of the answer key? Third, but most important and relevant thought that crossed my mind that day, now wouldn’t that make things much easier? 

Now here I am some five decades later not only typing and sharing my first answer key experience, but also relating it to an analogy for Baseball Rules in Black and White.  

You see baseball rule books are not what most would think.  Most believe it is simple, a book filled with rules, read the rules, understand the rules and apply the rules. End of story. But no, this is not the end of the story.

The many different versions of baseball rule books all are collections of poorly worded, fragmented run on sentences with related rulings randomly scattered throughout the book all in tiny font that would cause the greatest of scholars to seek therapy. I have no idea why baseball rule books are written this way, but they are. Trust me.

Until now.  A very stubborn man (that would be me) decided to make an enhanced educational baseball rule book resource, which takes us back to my grand visions of the very first answer key I ever saw on my teacher’s desk that fateful day some fifty years ago. 

As an umpire for seventeen years I was stymied by the conventional rule book's format and language, those days are gone.  I never had a teacher in school ever provide me with their answer key. That said I am now offering you the answer key to baseball rule books. Baseball Rules in Black and White.

The hours and days of senseless searching, page turning as those horrible feelings of hopelessness destroy any hope of ever understanding what you are attempting to read are now over. We have created an answer key for baseball rule books. Baseball Rules in Black and White has just released the 2018 College Edition, to be followed very soon by the 2018 High School Edition.

If an answer key works for teachers, why not umpires?