At the Field or on Television

Sixteen lessons, 1953.

In 1953 the Phillips Petroleum Company printed a small booklet and gave it away at filling stations. Sixteen major leaguers each explained one thing worth watching for — a squeeze play, a cut-off, the way a catcher blocks the plate — and each closed with a short list of cues telling a fan where to point their eyes.

The prose here is theirs, reproduced as printed. The diagrams have been rebuilt so they move.

How to Use this Book

Now you can be a baseball expert in 16 easy lessons. Spend only a few minutes a day with this handy, authoritative book (or take it all in at one reading if you prefer) then amaze your friends with your knowledge of the fine points of America’s National Sport.

Maybe you already are an expert. If so, take this book home to your wife (or your husband) and let her become an expert, too. It will save your answering a lot of tiresome questions while sitting in the grandstand or in front of your radio or TV set on summer afternoons.

And don’t forget to pass it along to the youngsters. It contains plenty of tips for playing the game as well as watching it. In fact, Joe Cronin, General Manager of the Boston Red Sox, read the manuscript and declared, “It ought to be required reading for every major leaguer.”

We hope you enjoy “How to Watch Baseball.” If you do, the man to thank is your Phillips 66 Dealer.

Inside front cover, page 2, reproduced as printed.

The lessons

All sixteen chapters — each bylined by a major leaguer who was playing that season, each closing with its list of cues, each carrying a diagram rebuilt so it moves.

The season

The 1953 season — the final standings, and every date both leagues played, laid out as the booklet’s last two pages lay them out.

The back of the book

Baseball Puzzlers — eight rules problems, each of which looks like a mistake until you find the rule that covers it. The booklet printed the answers directly underneath; here you have to ask.

Common Baseball Expressions — thirty-five terms from the last page, including a few nobody has said out loud since the Eisenhower administration.