Little League Team Disqualification.

[Altor]

Originally Posted by Manny A

What prompted this rule, I dunno. Perhaps it all came about from the whole "I Won't Cheat" crusade that LL went on when it put those patches on tournament team uniforms, and someone in a position of authority argued that sign stealing was cheating, so it had to be outlawed. Whatever the case, LL felt strong enough to not only have it as an optional rule during regular season play, but to make it a mandatory rule in tournament play. Pretty dumb. We may as well outlaw the stealing of bases as well, since it does involve, well, stealing.

Throughout all of this, all I can picture is the kid standing at second during the LLWS and waving his arms rather dramatically to indicate to the batter whether the catcher was setting up inside or outside. It was so comical that even the talking heads speculated about how distracting it must have been for the batter. Unfortunately, I can't find a video of it, so it must have happened so long ago that it cannot possibly be the impetus for this rule.

[Rich Ives]

People who never played sports think sign stealing is cheating.

[Mark T. DeNucci, Sr.]

Originally Posted by Rich Ives

People who never played sports think sign stealing is cheating.

Rich:

I could not have said it better myself.

MTD, Sr.

[teebob21]

Originally Posted by Rich Ives

People who never played sports think sign stealing is cheating.

Casinos think card counting is cheating, too. In either case, it's not. Using the available information to make the best possible informed decisions is never cheating.

[Mountaincoach]

Originally Posted by Altor

Throughout all of this, all I can picture is the kid standing at second during the LLWS and waving his arms rather dramatically to indicate to the batter whether the catcher was setting up inside or outside. It was so comical that even the talking heads speculated about how distracting it must have been for the batter. Unfortunately, I can't find a video of it, so it must have happened so long ago that it cannot possibly be the impetus for this rule.

I distinctly remember one year in the baseball LLWS when one of the Asian teams was doing that. And, you're right, they were waving their arms being incredibly obvious to the point the talking heads were noticing it along with everybody else. But, like you surmised, that was several years ago, and probably not the motivation for their current rule.