Catcher signal to manager - How do you deal?
 

Doing the best summer baseball around here, full of kids who play college ball or older guys who never made it out of A or AA.

Here's the sitch - a close pitch that I called ball. Catcher was calling his own game. He throws the ball back, looks into the dugout, and subtly slaps his shin guard.

Obviously, he's letting the manager know what he thought of the pitch.

How would you deal with this?

Here's what I did...

Me: "Does tapping your leg mean good call or bad call?"
F2: "Huh?"
Me: "On that close pitch, you letting your manager know what you thought?"
F2: "Just communicating"
Me: "Ok"

Critiques?

Is he not allowed to have an opinion or something?

Are you just trying to ridicule without offering any real advice? If you have some, I'd rather read that.

What does it matter if he is signifying to the dugout that he doesn't agree with the call? Are you going to get him on arguing balls and strikes? Let it go. Batters him and haw, huff and puff, lean back, etc, and you probably don't say anything to them. The catcher tapped his shin guard...seems pretty minor.

How do you know he wasn't signaling about a location they don't think you'll call, so to possibly work in a different location? Catchers at that level tend to pick up whether or not they will get certain spots, or at least I know I did. If they don't get a spot, they need to make a mental note if they are calling the game, or let the game caller know. It's baseball and they aren't insane (you know, the thing about doing the same thing and expecting different results). He's not going to stand up and say "he's not giving me the outer black" into the dugout, just like he wouldn't stand up and announce "throw a fastball on the inner half"...there is a sign for that.

You probably could have said "please don't signal to the bench after a close call" instead of "ok". Saying "ok" might make him wonder why you asked in the first place, and doesn't get your point across that you don't want him signaling.

It wouldn't bother me.

Thicken that skin!

Tuss,

I believe Brian's point was that the catcher was (likely) NOT "showing you up" by his action. If he does this in a way that nobody in the crowd is going to notice and you don't get a "chirp" from the coach in response, he didn't really do anything he shouldn't.

I might tell him "He needs to bring that in about a ball" or some such thing depending on where I thought it missed. I wouldn't ask him what he was doing.

JM

Was the pitch low perhaps? Slapping the shin is a pretty universal sign for 'it was down' (At least so far as the umpires zone that day).

When I played we used shin for down, knee for out & mask for up. Center of chest for "I have no clue what this clown is calling".

This is so low on my list of priorities to worry about, I can't remember the last time I thought about it during a game. Surely you have other things to think about when working the plate.

Picking up the wrong end
 

Don't let their actions bring out the worst in you.
Blaming umps for "bad" close calls is part of the big game atmosphere.
Glad it was a one time thing because it could have gotten out of control.
Think of the MLB ump who placed his hands on the back of the MLB hitter.
He was trying not to EJ, but it looked bad and made a simple situation worse.
The kids want to please the coach and the coach wants to please the parents.
Take the high road and control your unpleasant manner/input/actions.
It is hard to have anything good come out of something like this.

I feel like giving my own special signal here.:)

My opinion is similar to F1 taking signs. How in the heck do I know what tapping the shin guard means? For all you know, this "signal" could be anything from communication to a tick - you have no idea!

In short, leave it alone until someone actually comes to you and agrues balls & strikes. Then you can do something about it.

ok ... he could just be telling the manager where it was at so they can adjust. would you rather him do that or the manager yap about balls and strikes and the catcher keep relaying where it was at to him? its a good system for teams to use to adjust to what pitches you will call and what you wont and in no way show you up or anything. Let'em do it.

P.s. teams here do it ALL the time

My thing is how do you know it was a signal. He could have been adjusting the shin guard or knocking dust off. Making a big issue out of something which you have no idea of what he was doing is going to cause a problem. I would leave it alone and not question the catcher again about it.

He has done nothing to show you up. If anyone is going to, it will be the coach in this case b/c he will be the one saying something since the catcher is keeping quiet. Also, he may have been agreeing and telling the coach is was out of the zone. Who knows which is why you should leave it alone.