Sporting News/OBR

[Kevin Finnerty]

Originally Posted by MrUmpire

Sorry, I was just repeating from an email from MLB offices. I'll notify them of their error.

Sorry, Mr. Umpire, sir, and I am certainly very sorry also to your special friends at MLB.

[The Sporting News published the OBR for decades, including the early part of this one]

[MrUmpire]

I have no special friends at MLB. I don't know why you'd assume that. MLB stated in a release that TSN had printed the book and MLB was the publisher. Obviously, they were mistaken.

I don't know why you seem to think this is such a big deal. I doubt anyone else cares.

[Dave Reed]

Originally Posted by Kevin Finnerty

[The Sporting News published the OBR for decades, including the early part of this one]

I'm not sure if you are suggesting that The Sporting News was the only publisher of the OBR. They were not. Triumph Books has published the OBR for years-- and the pages have fallen out for years.

MLB can also claim to be a publisher, because the word "publisher" doesn't have a crisply defined meaning. "Copyright" does, though, and MLB holds the copyright on the rules themselves, while TSN and Triumph have copyrights to, for example, their cover art.

[bob jenkins]

Originally Posted by Dave Reed

I'm not sure if you are suggesting that The Sporting News was the only publisher of the OBR. They were not. Triumph Books has published the OBR for years-- and the pages have fallen out for years.

So did NBC. And, perhaps surprisingly, there were one or two (relatively small) differences. Personally, I preferred the format of the NBC book (it was smaller).

One of the differences: The NBC book said that when a pitcher was visited for the second time, he had to be removed "from the game." TSN just said he "had to be removed." The former is, of course, the MLB ruling (I think the rules on MLB.com at the time also omitted the "from the game" phrase.")

[Publius]

Originally Posted by bob jenkins

So did NBC. And, perhaps surprisingly, there were one or two (relatively small) differences. Personally, I preferred the format of the NBC book (it was smaller).

One of the differences: The NBC book said that when a pitcher was visited for the second time, he had to be removed "from the game." TSN just said he "had to be removed." The former is, of course, the MLB ruling (I think the rules on MLB.com at the time also omitted the "from the game" phrase.")

That was a NL/AL difference in interpretation for a time in the instructions to umpires. NL said "removed from the game," AL said "removed from the mound." Boy, did it annoy the managers in the summer leagues, who played "National League rules" and thought it just meant "no DH," when I enforced that.

[Kevin Finnerty]

Originally Posted by Dave Reed

I'm not sure if you are suggesting that The Sporting News was the only publisher of the OBR. They were not. Triumph Books has published the OBR for years-- and the pages have fallen out for years.

MLB can also claim to be a publisher, because the word "publisher" doesn't have a crisply defined meaning. "Copyright" does, though, and MLB holds the copyright on the rules themselves, while TSN and Triumph have copyrights to, for example, their cover art.

I did not. I simply insisted that TSN was a publisher of the OBR until recently and that they were authorized by MLB to be so.

[Rich Ives]

Slow day.

Don't confuse a generic "publish" with the meaning of "publish" in a legal sense.

In legalese, one of the definitions of publish includes:

b: to distribute or offer for distribution to the public copies of (a copyrightable work) by some transfer of ownership, rental, lease, or loan

Note the "transfer of ownership" part. As MLB did not transfer ownership to either SN or Triumph, those companies did not, in the legal sense, "publish" the book. MLB is just protecting their rights when they state that SN did not "publish" the book.

[MrUmpire]

Originally Posted by Rich Ives

Slow day.

Don't confuse a generic "publish" with the meaning of "publish" in a legal sense.

In legalese, one of the definitions of publish includes:

b: to distribute or offer for distribution to the public copies of (a copyrightable work) by some transfer of ownership, rental, lease, or loan

Note the "transfer of ownership" part. As MLB did not transfer ownership to either SN or Triumph, those companies did not, in the legal sense, "publish" the book. MLB is just protecting their rights when they state that SN did not "publish" the book.

Good luck with this. I had written a similar post and then decided to delete it.