More Unwritten Rules of Baseball

By James Finn Garner and Jim Siergey

•    Don’t talk to a pitcher who’s throwing a no-hitter or perfect game.
•    Never slap the ball out of a fielder’s glove or distract him from catching a pop-up.
•   Don’t swing at the first pitch if the last two hitters hit home runs.
•   Never try to break up a no-hitter by releasing feral pigs onto the field.
•   After a home run, a batter should not flip, burn, bury, lick or sing a love song to his bat.
•   After making an out to end an inning, the batter should not run over the pitcher’s Mounds bar.
•   After hitting a home run, a batter should not drop trou and shit on the pitcher’s mound. The mound is considered the pitcher’s exclusive “territory,” and only he is allowed to shit there.
•   A pitcher should not throw at a batter’s children.
•   On a 3-0 pitch, a batter should not break out his iPhone to check texts or post on Instagram.
•   Infielders should not write love letters in the dirt.
•   A catcher should not rip a piece of fabric when a batter swings to make him think he has split his pants.
•   When a pitcher has a no-hitter going, everyone in the dugout should use exaggerated mime actions (e.g., pulling an invisible rope) to communicate.
•   Whether pets or no, hybrid wolves are not allowed in the bullpen.
•   Outfielders are not allowed to use dune buggies to field their positions.
•   Batters are not allowed to bunt if they make more than $13 million that season.
•   Extension grabbers hidden in outfielders’ gloves are strictly taboo.
•   “Cumbly mumbly jumbly fumbly / Gimby gumby foo foo!” (sic)
•   First basemen should not discuss existentialism with baserunners.
•   Catchers are not allowed to give fake haircuts to batters.
•   If a rhinoceros enters the field, play is suspended until the head umpire finishes reading aloud from Ionesco.

Reprinted from the nation’s best humor magazine, The American Bystander, issue #25.