The unwritten rules of baseball, courtesy of Goose Gossage and the St. Paul Saints – CBSSports.com

You’ll recall that Hall of Fame relief ace Goose Gossage is not particularly enamored of the contemporary ballplayer’s flourishes. We’re talking bat-flips, admiration from the batter’s box, and the like. These matters and many others — anything, really — fall within the nebulous heading, “the unwritten rules of baseball.”

Indeed, oral tradition has always been the game’s guide when it comes to throwing a righteous tantrum over the behavior of opponents. When should you let rage consume you so that you see the game through the bloodshot, manic eyes of the tent revivalist? The unwritten rules shall lead you by the hand to the restorative springs of umbrage!

Anyway, the St. Paul Saints, buccaneering indy-league club of some renown, on July 6 will host a night devoted to those unwritten rules. Here’s what that entails …

On Wednesday, July 6 when the Saints take on the Joplin Blasters at 7:05 p.m. the first 1,500 fans in attendance will receive the first of its kind Unwritten Rule Book. Coming in at more than 200 pages and 4.1 inches wide and 6.3 inches high, the 2016 Official Baseball Rulebook explains everything from the layout of the field, to equipment that can be used to how a game should be scored.

The 2016 Official Baseball Unwritten Rulebook will be similar in size with fewer pages and, by the end of the night, it will be packed with information that addresses baseball situations that have been hotly debated for decades. Wondering about the superstition of discussing a no-hitter? It can be in the book. What about stealing a base when you’re up 10 runs? It can be in the book. What about bunting on a pitcher throwing a no-hitter? All you have to do is flip open the book, grab a pencil and the answer can appear right before your eyes.

Joplin Blasters!

Anyhow, you get a book of unwritten rules, which, ipso facto, will haven nothing written in it. So it falls to you to fill the pages with baseball’s very own thundersome mandates.

As for Mr. Gossage, who is in some ways the Cotton Mather of baseball outrage, he’ll be on hand to sign your book of unwritten rules. This is not like getting a signed copy of the Iliad, but it’s not unlike it, either.

People, on July 6 in St. Paul, Leviticus shall hit a triple.