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And, please, for the sake of the game, don't trot out the old "travesty of the game" argument anytime you see something on a baseball field that "just doesn't look right"!
In OBR, the odd phrase about "making a travesty of the game" appears in conjunction with one rule- the rule about a runner running the bases in reverse order. In FED it appears twice- once in the same rule about running the bases in reverse order and again in reference to making (guessing at) multiple appeals.
Those are the only times this phrase appears and those are the only situations where an umpire should make any sort of ruling based on "making a travesty of the game". Yet, time and time again, I see umpires trying to apply some imaginary "travesty rule" whenever they see something unusual, out of the ordinary or just plain different happen in one of their games.
"Making a travesty of the game" is an archaic sort of term, but it probably sounded right when this rule was first crafted in the early 1900's. The rule was first put in place to address the then-common practice of a baserunner already on second base "stealing" first base, hoping to draw a throw or confuse the defense enough to allow a runner on third the chance to score. Having a runner advance "the wrong way" was deemed counterproductive to the goals of the sport- indeed, even a travesty!- and this practice was outlawed. The interpretation was subsequently expanded to include a player who runs the bases "clockwise"- from home to third to second to first.
The so-called "travesty rule" isn't some blanket ruling that can be applied to any situation under the sun that looks odd or different to an umpire. It applies to one very specific rule infraction (in OBR, two in FED) that most of us will probably never see in one of our games.
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