Customer Reviews

The Hidden Language of Baseball: How Signs and Sign Stealing Have Influenced the Course of Our National Pastime

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4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(0)
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Paul Dickson has done it again! Here's a book that all baseball fans will love, even those modest folk who know everything there is to know about the game. "The Hidden Language of Baseball" is the book to read -- after you make it a most valuable gift to your kids, who have often asked you (as if you knew) what those goofy and not-so goofy signs mean, who dreamed them up and how come the other team doesn't steal them, which, of course, they try their darndest to do. Paul Dickson takes the reader through baseball sign language from its very earliest recorded years to the wild and wooly "Golden Age" of flagrantly outrageous stealing and to today's signing in full view of the ever-improving intrusiveness of high-tech TV lenses. The book is full of wonderful anecdotes - a Dizzy Dean classic will have you roaring with delight. Like "The Dickson Baseball Dictionary", this book is a must for baseball fans of all ages.

A short but thorough history of baseball as seen through the development of signs, sign stealing and tip-off reading. Includes some delightful photographs, numerous anotations, a lengthy bibliography and index. Paul Dickson's approach to baseball makes me wonder if the recent homerun records aren't more a case for renewed talent in sign stealing / tip-off reading than for new technology for bats or performance inhancing drugs.

Forget the simple theory that Bobby Thomson benefitted from a stolen sign when he hit the historic homer off Ralph Branca in 1951. Dickson gives us the real story--a much more colorful and fascinating peek at baseball's most memorable moment. That's just one of many new and interesting facts and anecdotes in this first-of-its kind book. I've written baseball books myself and I tip my hat to this one.

During any given nine-inning baseball game over a thousand silent instructions are given between players and from umpires to coaches. You've seen the hand signals - now understand their meaning in the first examination of their history, evolution and methods. Baseball games are surveyed past and present to gain a fine chronology of player signals.

Book came in a timely matter. It was packaged well and was like new. I love books about baseball and I think this is a good read.

Here Paul Dickson tells you all about things that you thought were there but that you know for sure when you finish this ones again fantastic book.

Totally love this Book. For the casual fan, it's very revealing. For the rabid fan, it,s still fun.

This is a fantastic book for baseball lovers. My son is in high school and just loved it!

This is a good study of baseball's mostly nonverbal communication (as the author points out, a scientific study is tough) - would not recommend this as a starter book for beginners or kids. But, if you are reading this, you probably read a LOT of baseball books, so go for it.