Mar 22, 2025
Bill Hammond
The entire process of devising and delivering baseball signs has always fascinated me.
The instant communication — coach to players, catcher to pitcher and player to player — is the game’s secret code. It greatly appealed to a young me.
Signs, alternately called signals, used by my baseball and softball teams ranged from devious to ridiculously simple.
I played on one team whose players each had a personal set of signals. It was chaos.
On another team, the coach gave signals that meant absolutely nothing. It was what he would do next. If he stood perfectly still, nothing was happening. If he stepped forward, that meant bunt, if backward, steal. Diabolically simple!
Bob Muscato
My fascination grew into the lost art of stealing signs. It was taking note of the unusual — a tell, a glance, a nod — a player staring extra long at a coach or a coach giving signals more slowly than usual. Any clue something was up!
The first time I remember stealing signs was during a Grape Belt League game. My dad was manager of our local American Legion team and he entered us in the Grape Belt to pick up experience playing older teams. We were 18 and younger.
One day we were playing a team we had no business beating. The longtime town ball club boasted a pitcher with some minor league experience. He’s in the Chautauqua Sports Hall of Fame, so let the guessing begin.
Anyway, I was coaching first base when I noticed something unusual about the ace pitcher’s catcher.
Whenever he wanted a fastball, he’d quickly flash his right hand in and out between his legs extending one finger. Any other pitch he wanted, he would much more slowly display two or more fingers.
Tom Prevet
I brought the information back to my dad and he came up with a plan.
Our team was no match for the ace’s curves, sliders, drops and changeups. But we could hit fastballs. If the batter wanted to know when the fastball was coming — some didn’t — then my dad would call him by his last name.
It worked wonderfully. We knocked their ace out of the game early and rolled to an upset victory.
My Fredonia State coach, Tom Prevet, would designate two non-starters strictly to stealing signs. One would watch the base coach and the other would monitor the manager.
Back in high school I misread a signal from Cardinal Mindszenty Coach Bob Muscato. Or did I?
As I recall it, we were playing in Lackawanna against Baker Victory High School.
After doubling to left field, I somehow made it to third base. Here’s where it got interesting. Earlier in the season, Coach Muscato told us players about an article he read in a coaching journal. It was on the squeeze bunt and identified the perfect ball-strike count to trigger it.
The author argued a pitcher was more likely to throw a buntable pitch on a three-ball, no-strike count.
Well, the soon-to-be first-time Smith Division champion Monarchs were going to test the theory. If the situation ever presented itself, Muscato would signal the batter and base runner by raising his right hand.
The opportunity never arose in early games and nothing more was ever mentioned about the play. I assumed (Yeah, I know what it makes out of you and me!) the play was still in effect.
Well, the count went to 3 and 0 on our ace pitcher Terry Leja, a left handed batter.
I looked to my right at Coach Muscato in the third-base coaching box and he slowly raised his right hand. In my mind, the squeeze bunt had just been ordered.
Once the pitcher started his windup, I took off for home. Ahead of me, a look of surprise, concern and then fear overtook my teammate’s stricken face as he realized I was headed his way.
Terry had interpreted his coach’s hand gesture as a “don’t swing” signal, so he was understandably confused.
I soon realized there would be no squeeze bunt from Terry, who backed away from the plate as I rumbled closer.
I was too far gone to stop when Coach Muscato screamed, “What are you doing, Hammond? Get back here!”
The commotion apparently startled the pitcher so much he threw ball four in the dirt and it bounced to the fence.
I scored standing up with an early run and we went on to win the game.
Coach Muscato later questioned my mad dash and I explained my rationale. He was skeptical but made sure to go over our signals — real and imagined — before every game from that day forward.
On the bus trip home I waged a losing battle with our team scorekeeper. He wanted to credit my run to a wild pitch while I wanted to call it a steal of home. It would have been the only one of my career. Oh, well, I guess it could easily have been worse. A lot worse.
ı ı ı
Did your team use unusual signals? How did they do? Let me know at mandpp@hotmail.com
ı ı ı
Bill Hammond is a former EVENING OBSERVER sports editor
Girls Basketball NYSPHSAA Far West Regionals at Buffalo State University Friday, March 14 Class …
Copyright © Observer Today | https://www.observertoday.com | PO Box 391, Dunkirk, NY 14048 | 716-366-3000
