Is This a Great Game, or What?: From A-Rod's Heart to Zim's Head--My 25 Years in Baseball by Tim Kurkjian

Author:Tim Kurkjian [Kurkjian, Tim]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: St. Martin's Press
Published: 2007-05-01T00:00:00+00:00

8

Signs, Signs, Everywhere a Sign

Rich Donnelly is the third-base coach for the Dodgers. He works in a box and spends his days making strange gyrations, hundreds of them per game, to hitters and base runners. “I figured out there are sixteen parts of my body that I can touch, and I touch all sixteen during a game,” he says. He is relaying signs, a skill that demands repetition and balance: They must be simple enough for his players to understand yet complicated enough so as not to be stolen by the opposition. Donnelly starts some mornings by practicing in the bathroom mirror.

“I brush my teeth and ask my wife, ‘See if you can find the bunt sign, honey,’” Donnelly said, laughing. “But it’s kind of tough because I don’t have Dodgers written across my pajamas. Then she’ll give me her signs: The hat means take out of the garbage, the nose means clean up the kitchen, and the ear means there are two stalls in the barn that need sweeping. She’ll say, ‘I know some of your players miss signs, but you won’t miss my signs.’”

Giving and stealing signs is baseball’s secret game, the one that is played behind the scenes when no one is looking except the other team, which is always looking. It has been an integral part of baseball since the 1800s when Sliding Billy Hamilton was stealing a hundred bases a year, and opponents were trying to figure out when he was going. “If you don’t try to steal signs, you’re not doing your job,” said Hall of Famer Paul Molitor. Thousands of signs per game are being sent, some are real, some fake, and every night, the opposition is trying to steal them because it could mean the difference between winning and losing. “The game moves so quickly for the manager and coaches because we’re working our butts off,” said Donnelly. “The average fan has no idea what’s going on, with signs on every play. To sit in the dugout and watch all of it happen is really cool.”

Over the last ten to fifteen years, the art of giving and stealing signs has taken on even greater importance because managers have assumed control of games: They call all pitchouts, pickoff throws, slide steps, and step-offs (a pitcher steps off the mound to check the intent of the runner), and occasionally will even call a pitch if the catcher looks over for help. There are signs exchanged from everywhere, from manager to third-base coach, from third-base coach to the hitter, from the shortstop to the second baseman. And someone is constantly watching. No one watched closer than former Angels manager Gene Mauch. “When I was signaling to the second baseman about who was covering the bag on the steal, Gene would look at my neck and see the veins sticking out, which meant my mouth was open, and from that, he could figure out who was covering the bag,” said ex-Orioles shortstop Cal Ripken. “He’d relay that information to the hitter.

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