The Second-Greatest Baseball Game Ever Played

* * * Dad was clearly energized by our escape from trouble in the top of the first inning. For our turn at the plate he took up the position of the third base coach, the most important of the “field manager” spots for the team at bat. He clapped his hands enthusiastically, encouraging us with things like “now’s the time… show ‘em what you can do.” He wore a green baseball style cap adorned with the “John Deere” logo and he held in his hands a clipboard used to keep score of the game. The hat and the clipboard were also the focus for the baseball “signs” he had selected for the game. I have always been amazed and puzzled when anyone says baseball is boring. If you truly know the game and everything that is happening on the field of play – things that are often silent and unseen, action only in the minds of the participants – then you will find a remarkable complexity that is part of the beauty of the sport. Baseball “signs” are a big part of this. Signs are mostly hand signals that guide play, such as the finger signs the catcher puts down between his legs to instruct the pitcher what kind of pitch to throw. But there are many other signs given usually by the manager, then relayed to the third base coach and on to the players. These signs are a series of subtle and sequential movements. The hand touches the arm, leg, touching either on cloth or skin, or the nose, cap, shoe or sock. It could be hand on skin first, then touch the cap, then back to skin. When correctly interpreted, the batter then obeys the instruction to let a pitch go by, or to bunt the ball, sacrificing his own opportunity in order to move a runner forward on the bases. Or the sign could tell a runner to try to steal a base. Maybe hit and run. Double steal. Swing away. It’s the “sign language” of baseball. Learning to read it is part of the skill set.