Real-Life Communication
You're up at bat. You look over at the third base coach, who is in
charge of giving you hand signs. These are signals which tell you what you
should do.
In baseball, there is lots of non-verbal communicating.
When you see the coaches on TV touching the rims of their hats, or the end
of their nose or making window-wiper motions with their fingers, they're often
talking in code to their players.
"It's important to be able to communicate
effectively with teammates, coaches, fans and the media," says Justine Siegal.
She is the founder and executive coach of a Massachusetts-based organization
that offers baseball instruction for men and women.
"Baseball is filled
with non-verbal communication. The third base coach gives multiple coded signs
to his players, the catcher puts down his fingers to signal what pitch to
throw, and the middle infielders open and close their mouths based on who
is going to cover the bag on a steal."
Here are some examples of what
some of these non-verbal codes could mean for your professional baseball team:
If
your coach raises his right hand to his left arm, he's telling you to take
a pitch; to just let the ball go past you, even if it's a strike.
If
he raises his left hand to his right arm, that means you're free to swing
if it's a good pitch.
If he touches his right hand to his baseball
cap, that means you should go for a sacrifice bunt. His right hand touching
his ear is the sign to steal (for runners on base).
And, if he touches
his face with his right hand, that's the key, or indicator, sign, which means
that you can ignore all signs before it and only follow the signs after it.
It's
important that other teams don't understand your signs. The third base coach
looks at you and gives the following signal routine: His left hand goes to
his right arm, then his right hand goes to his left arm, then his right hand
goes to his face, then his right hand touches his baseball cap. What do you
do?