Regarding rules, fans find it hard to play it by the book

Spurred by a high school lesson, Zach Bernard turned to ebay to purchase a pair of NASCAR Sprint Cup rule books — which series officials do not make available to the public — in early February.

“My government teacher ... had a couple of rules in the classroom, and one of them was check your definition,” said Bernard, 25, of Columbus, Ohio. “As a fan, it’s hard to dispute something with fellow fans if you don’t have the rules in front of you in black and white.”

Bernard bought each rule book for $30. Others have paid more than $80 apiece. A seller on ebay charges $100 a book as demand overrides supply.

While Major League Baseball, the NBA, NFL and NHL all have their rule books on their websites, NASCAR does not.

Even as series officials have sought to be more open about their procedures — including the elimination of secret fines to competitors — the 172-page Cup rule book isn’t offered by NASCAR to the public.

Indycar sells its 198-page rule book for $25 to the public, upon request. The NHRA’S rule book can be purchased for $10 on its website. In a statement, NASCAR said the rule book “is readily available to all our members, and we also distribute it annually to the (news) media.”

Bernard said having a rule book helped him better understand the appeal process for NASCAR’S penalty to Jimmie Johnson’s team last month.

For Mike Mitchell, 41, of Jacksonville, not having access to the rules is a transparency issue.

“When someone thinks you’re hiding something,” said Mitchell, who spent 23 years in the Navy, “then you immediately become suspect across the board in people’s mind.”

Robin Pemberton, NASCAR’S vice president of competition, said making the rule book available to the public was “not something that has been high on our priority list by any means because (the media) get them, and you can answer the question and write whatever you need to write about in the rule book.”

For MLB, putting its rule book on the Web was an easy decision. “Fans are so passionate, and when things come up, they’ll want to know the answers,” said Mike Teevan, MLB director of public relations.

“We’re happy to put the rules out there and let them sort of act as the umpire.”

The NBA and NHL have sup- plemented their online rule books with video highlights that show fans in greater detail what are infractions and why.

Tim Frank, senior vice president of communications for the NBA, said the league’s video rule book section had been online for at least two years and had been well received.

The NBA, on its website, lets fans e-mail Don Vaden, the NBA’S director of officials, about rules interpretations or questions about officiating.

The league also has the Twitter account @Nbaofficial, where it dissects a rule each week and provides a link to video that further explains a particular issue.

“What we realized is how often somebody watches a game, and then you see on Twitter how they’re upset about a call, and their understanding of the rule is not correct,” Frank said.

The NFL provides a case book on its website where various plays are described and why certain infractions were called.

With so much information available, Mitchell said it only made sense for NASCAR to do the same.

“The younger generation, which NASCAR needs to hit, are the information-age junkies,” Mitchell said. “They don’t deal well when someone tells them you can’t have this information.”