Catcher's Signs

Catcher's have many signs that they need to know. They have signs to the pitcher, signs from the coaches, signs to the coaches, signs to and from the corner infielders, and signs to and from the middle infielders. They even have signs to the outfielders sometimes if they want to put on a "no doubles" defense or tell the outfielders where to throw the baseball on a play at the plate. Usually the coach will do this however I have seen some catchers take authority and call what they see out. Since there are so many signs that are out there I will just give you some of the best signs that I have seen since I have been a part of baseball.

Signs from the coach:
I had a coach that would have a guy sitting next to him doing the chart. When he wanted the pitcher to throw a certain pitch he would wisper to the charter what pitch he wanted, then he would wistle to the catcher and give him signs with his finger all over his face. Nose, ear, nose, nose, ear, chin, nose, nose, chin, ear. These signs meant nothing. The catcher was actually looking at the charter who had his head turned a certain way. Looking straight could mean fastball, down = curve ball, left = slider, right = change up, or whatever they decided that game. The location was actually giving by the coaches hand that wasn't giving signs on his face. Inside the knee meant in, outside = out, and on top meant right down the middle. I thought that was one of the best signs given from a coach to the catcher.

Signs to the coach:
Most of the time the coach is only going to want to know what pitch was thrown or if the pitch was a ball or a strike. Giving the pitch to them is easy. Just put down the sign on the outside of your leg when they ask. This is always after the pitch has been thrown. It is usually for charting purposes. As for wanted to know if it were a ball or a strike, you can grab your mask if it was a strike and the ump missed the call and called it a ball. This let's the coaches know that they are right if they decide to argue or say something.

Signs to the pitcher:
There are a million ways for signs to be given to the pitcher. First sign, second sign, third sign, last sign, outs plus one, pumps, subtraction, there are millions of ways. I'm just going to give you one that I thought was easy to use and hard to pick off. It was sort of a pump system except we weren't just counting pumps. The catcher would give a bunch of signs, the first one being the indicator. From there we would count the pumps. For example: If the catcher put down 2,2,1,3,2,1, the pitch would be a fastball. It would be a fastball because the first sign is a 2. Once I saw the two, I would start counting pumps. One the second pump, whatever sign was put down that was the pitch to throw. Therefore another example could be: 3,2,1,1,2,3,2,1. The pitch would be the underlined fastball. After you see the 3, you count til you get to the 3rd sign. The location was given by the glove hand. Inside the knee meant inside, out meant out, and on top meant down the middle. This was a great set of signs because they were easy to use but hard to pick because they changed every pitch.

Other signs:
Signs to the outfielder usually consist of a pat on the head to throw to second base instead of home on a play at the plate, or a hand over and behind the head to signal a "no doubles" defense. Those outfield signs are pretty universal. Signs to the corner infielders may just be picking up dirt or picking the pants to pick off. Those are pretty universal too. Just make sure you get with everyone and know what the signs are. It is your job to make sure everyone is on the same page.