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Behind the Plate

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ActiveTom

Cheating At The Little League World Series??

Posted by ActiveTom on Aug 25, 2009 7:11:33 PM

In the game between, Staten Island, NY and Urbandale, IA, each team is looking to do its best.  All players have taken a vow to not cheat and this vow is memorialized by the patch on each player's uniform.  In bold letters it says "I WILL NOT CHEAT."

 

!http://community.active.com/servlet/JiveServlet/download/38-51106/NY1.jpg?blogID=8913|height=320|style=padding:10px;|align=left|width=180|src=http://community.active.com/servlet/JiveServlet/download/38-51106/NY1.jpg?blogID=8913!However, the coaches take no such vow.  Maybe some thought ought to be given to having the coaches also understand the words of this vow.

 

The third base coach for New York is Manager Michael Zaccariello.  He appears to communicate more than the usual information to his batters while he was coaching.  He was able to tell them the type of pitch.  How?  Was he cheating? You be the judge.

 

Each time the Urbandale Iowa pitcher Trae Cropp prepared to pitch he would place his fingers on the ball in the proper way to throw each type of pitch.  Curveball one way, slider another and fastball a third way.  The New York coach appeared to lean way in to see the method of holding the ball prior to delivery (see picture 1) and then would signal the pitch to his team via hand signals (see picture 2).  The New York batters put this information to good use as they pounded out 6 hits and scored 4 runs, 3 earned, while Trae was pitching.!http://community.active.com/servlet/JiveServlet/download/38-51105/NY3.jpg?blogID=8913|height=324|style=padding:10px;|align=right|width=180|src=http://community.active.com/servlet/JiveServlet/download/38-51105/NY3.jpg?blogID=8913!

 

Players often will steal pitch signals by looking around the pitcher while standing on second base.  A hand signal to the batter helps him understand when the pitch is expected to be delivered. Sometimes a batter will look back and steal the signals while standing in the box.   So is this cheating.  Most people would say no as this is common practice in baseball.  But coaches stealing pitches by looking at the hands of the pitcher.  That's new to most of us.

 

So, was this cheating by the Coach?  There is no rule against it.  There is also no precedent for this behavior.  Perhaps the operation committee of Little League ought to investigate whether this violates the spirit of the no cheating vow taken by the players.  In a conversation I had with the Director of Communications for Little League International, Lance Van Auken, who is also a memeber of the Rules Committee, he indicated that this type of behavior may be discussed for further action in future rules.

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Comments (3)
Aug 27, 2009 10:29 AM RyanActive RyanActive    says:

Wow. I think Tom has this one nailed.

 

I'm not sure if it's cheating, but this is definitely not appropriate competitive strategy for Little League. This pitcher is just a 12-year old kid, and he's still learning the art of pitching, which includes not tipping your pitches to any spying adults who will use it to their advantage.

 

If a coach got caught doing this at a higher level, a batter would get drilled right between the numbers for retaliation.

 

I can't say I've never benefited from something similar, though. When I was playing in high school, a catcher flashed signs so obvious to our first-base coach that our coach would say "Let's go Ryan!" if it was a fastball and "Let's go 18!" if it was a breaking ball. So I won't profess to be the role model of sportsmanship. In the same breath, some of us were a year away from playing college or professional baseball. Things were a lot more competitive playing high school varsity, and by that point some of us had been playing for 13 years and were much more aware of potential tips that other teams might expose.

 

Some of these kids haven't been alive for 13 years. Play fair and quit spoiling the spirit of Little League.
Aug 28, 2009 5:12 PM ScottEC ScottEC    says:

I'm not sure if that's ethical, but I can't call it cheating. The coach for the pitcher should probably teach his kids to only position their hand on the ball inside the glove where nobody can see. That being said, it's kind of cheap to exploit the inexperience of a 12 year old like that.
Aug 30, 2009 8:42 AM Joe Molter Joe Molter    says:

Sounds like good coaching from NY and poor coaching from IA.  To be in the most advanced tournament for LL baseball and not be coached to not give away pitches is surprising.  I believe in not cheating but if you're going to show me what's coming, I'm gonna pass it along.  I don't think there's a question here.  If you know the SS and second basemen aren't covering the bag between pitches, as a coach don't you tell your kid on first to steal??

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