Secret Baseball Signals

Taps, touches, swipes, claps all mean something on the baseball diamond BY PATTI ARNOLD
Cox News Service Sunday, April 24, 2005
GRAND JUNCTION, Colo. — Tom Berenger signaled his own bunt in the movie "Major League," a "hell of an idea," his manager said, who relayed the signs to the third base coach. He, in turn, let Willie Mays Hayes know what was on so he could score the winning run from second base and get the Cleveland Indians into the American League playoffs.
Geena Davis and Tom Hanks went through a thigh-slapping version of dueling signals, much to the dismay of poor Marla Hooch in "A League of Their Own," who danced in and out of the batter's box, trying to figure out who was in charge. Davis wanted Hooch to bunt, Hanks wanted her to swing away. Hanks, in the end, won, although the Rockford Peaches eventually lost the All-American Girls Professional Baseball League World Series to Racine, Wis.
All those touches of the nose, cap, swiping a hand across the letters of a jersey, tapping a leg, tugging on a belt — they all mean something to the guy at the plate. Other signs tell the pitcher what play is on.
Same for the second baseman. And the shortstop, third baseman and first baseman.
The trick is to relay what needs to be done without letting the other team know what you're doing.
An even better trick is to figure out what the other team is doing by cracking its signs.
On the Mesa State College baseball team, ranked No. 7 in the Collegiate Baseball Division II poll, that job falls to assistant coach Landon Wareham, a former shortstop for the Mavs.
"He's good at it," head coach Chris Hanks said of Wareham's ability to decipher opposing coach's signs.
"Earlier in the year we picked two runners at first. Both of them, Wareham said, 'They're running.' So we signaled in to pick to first and got them both."
Baseball signs start in Little League. Coaches, obviously, keep them pretty simple so young players can keep up while they learn the game.
"Steal the cap, bunt the belt," Hanks said of the signs his Little League coach used.
Here's another one: tug the earlobe, then swipe the hand across the nose = hit and run.
Hanks, who played in the Boston Red Sox organization, said there's a big difference between signs in college and professional baseball.
"When I was with Boston, we only had about four signs," Hanks said of the big leagues. "They're not going to win on strategies."
But in the college ranks, everything has a sign. It's not just hitting and running, bunting or swinging away.
Everything, from who takes the throw at second base on an attempted steal to bunt defenses to how many times a pitcher looks back a runner is signaled. But it's not just a tug of the cap — oh, no, that's way too easy. When Hanks puts on a hit and run, for example, there are 16 touches, all rhythmically patterned in a matter of seconds.
"Right chest, right leg, left chest, left leg, left arm, right arm, right leg, right chest, right cheek, left arm, left leg, left chest, left leg, right chest, right cheek (clap)," Hanks said, going through a series of signs that may or may not have been the actual ones he uses in a game.
Most teams use an indicator, one touch that lets the batter know that the next sign is the play.
"Sometimes you go with an indicator," he said. "Sometimes it's an indicator and a hot spot, but it's not on until the hot spot is touched again to close the sign. When you mix it like that, it's pretty hard for people to crack those."
There are signs that must be "closed," done by touching another spot in a certain order, before a play is on. There are signs that stay on until Hanks wipes them off.
"That makes it hard to crack," Hanks said. "The other team is wondering, 'Is the kid doing it on his own? Is he stealing, bunting on his own?' A bunt play is one that can go on four or five pitches."
With Wareham's prowess at cracking the code of opposing teams, Hanks knows there's someone in the other dugout who has the same duty. In fact, Wareham told Hanks a couple of weeks ago that he was being too predictable with his signs, telling him he could crack his signs if he didn't know them already. Hanks, like all young coaches, had to practice his signs early in his career, but now they're second nature.
"A long time ago we used to have a rotating indicator," Hanks said. "Every inning the indicator would change (from the cheek to the leg to the belt to the leg to the chest).
"I could go through everything but if I don't go to my right cheek in the first inning, the minute I go there, that meant something and (clap) the sign's on.
"That system is almost impossible to crack. We don't do that any more because there are more missed signs."
Missing a sign is a cardinal sin in baseball, about as bad as making the last out of an inning at third base.
You miss the sign for a squeeze bunt, the runner comes barreling down the third-base line and there's no way he's going to score.
If you're on second and the coach calls for a double steal, you're asking for an easy out, probably two, when the runner on first takes off and you're still standing on the bag he's trying to steal.
"We try not to do that very much," Mesa State second baseman Sean McKinney said of missing signs. "We know when something's on. We've only missed one or two signs all year. The whole team has done a great job at that."
Early in the season, the Mavs actually go through signs live at practice. Before every game, the team brushes up on signs and indicators in the clubhouse just before returning to the field. Signs in baseball aren't just reserved for hitters. Catchers signal every pitch — when you're starting out, one is a fastball, two is a curveball. They get more complicated as players grow up, with a pattern of flashing fingers telling the pitcher to not only throw a split-finger fastball, but to throw it up and in on a right-handed hitter.
Before that, though, the pitching coach has a series of touches that tell the catcher what to tell the pitcher to throw. Mesa State catcher Jesse Elam calls his own pitches most of the time, but there are instances when, if you watch pitching coach Jeff Rodgers closely, you'll see him tapping his nose, chin and cheek in various patterns. Things change with a runner on second — he can look in and steal the catcher's signs.
But still, there's more. With runners on first and third, many catchers will step out in front of the plate and run through a set of signs, tapping the forearm of his glove hand with his bare hand. That tells the infield that, if the runner goes, he'll either throw through to second or he wants the shortstop to cut off the throw before it gets to the bag, because they think the runner on third will try to steal home.
With a runner on first, the shortstop and second baseman communicate to one another who will take the throw on a stolen-base attempt.
"Willie (Hinojosa) and I have a system we use," McKinney said of he and the Mavs' shortstop. "Usually it's open mouth, closed mouth, but sometimes we throw different things in there because the third base coach is over there trying to pick up what we're doing. We try to vary it each game.
"Then we have signs coming from the third baseman and Willie and I relay what pitches are coming to the outfielders so they know every pitch what's coming.
"That helps them out, they can get positioning. If it's a fastball, they'll play this way or that play, or a , it's the other way. It's that extra step that can help you make those great plays, diving plays."
Brad Quick and Jared Burek, who rotate at third for the Mavs, will signal bunt defenses to the rest of the infield after Hanks sends it in from the dugout.
Hinojosa signals to the pitcher how many times he wants him to look runners back to second.
There's no way any one person can pick up all the signing that's going on at any one time.
"The neatest scenario to look at that a lot of people don't realize is runners at first and second and it's a possible bunt situation," Hanks said, grinning at the thought of the activity before each pitch.
"You have Rodgers giving a sign for a pitch to the catcher while the opposite coach is giving an offensive sign to their team. While that's going on, the pitcher's looking at the shortstop for looks on how many times to look at second base to hold the runner.
"Then he looks to the third baseman to get what bunt defense is on, and then the pitcher looks to home plate to get the sign from the catcher.
"While that's happening, Willie and McKinney are giving open mouth-closed mouth on who's got the bag if the runner goes and after they do that and the pitcher comes set, the middle infielders are looking at the catcher to see what pitch is coming to relay that to the outfielders so they can anticipate, based on odds, whether the kid has a better chance to pull the ball or if he's going to be late.
"While all that is going on, I'm giving the bunt defense to the third baseman.
"The new pitchers get overloaded at first until they get used to that process."
Marla Hooch had it easy.
Patti Arnold writes for The Daily Sentinel (Grand Junction, Colo.).