est we go too far along the tangent, Carl was congratulating my commitment to write professionally in general and about sports officiating in particular. In a previous life (actually in a previous century), I edited baseball coverage for a national magazine about sports officiating; and Carl was my most recognizable contributor. For seven years we battled administrators, interpreters, and each other — in a friendly way — always fighting to force umpires to think deeply about how and why they did what they did on the field.

I’ve sometimes considered my greatest contribution to be the time I rescued a xeroxed manuscript from the depths of an unused file drawer. With a bit of work it became Baseball Rule Differences and changed the way a lot of us research rules. Of course, the manuscript and the book were Carl’s work; I just kept him on track and in touch with the official interpreters.

Well, now that I’ve claimed fame and credit, offered a bit of my background, and been compared to one of the great leading men of cinematic history (albeit when Bogy sent a young and lovely girl off to be with her husband instead of to his flat above a saloon), it’s time to get down to business.

Continued...