By JOHN JAMES MARSHALL, Journal Sports
Old school baseball tradition certainly has its place, but local high school coaches aren’t letting that get in the way of simplicity and efficiency that technology has brought to their profession.
Granted, Hall of Fame catcher Johnny Bench never had someone talking into his earpiece telling him what pitch to call, but more and more local high school catchers are doing just that.
Two years ago, a rule was passed that allows coaches to call pitches from the dugout from a transmitter that is picked up by the catcher wearing an earpiece.
No more exhaustive signs that are more complicated than Morse Code.
No more calling out a series of numbers — “SEVEN-FIVE-EIGHT!!” — and then looking at wristband charts for the translation.
No more blank stares from the catcher because he wasn’t looking when the whole process started.
In a game that usually has about 200 pitches, that’s a lot of dead time.
If you’ve been to a game lately, you’ll will certainly notice the pace of play has dramatically increased.
“Obviously it increases the speed of the game, which is a good thing,” Byrd coach Greg Williams said. “Instead of going through numbers and wristbands and guys having to read and all that, they can just hear it. And for teenagers today, being able to hear it instead of having to decipher makes it easier.”
“You don’t have to hide anything,” Haughton’s Glenn Maynor said. “You just tell it directly to the catcher.”
But it’s not simply a matter of calling pitches and locations.
“I like that we can communicate with our catcher at any time,” Airline’s Toby Todd said. “We can ask if that was a strike or was it outside? The catcher can get a message from us and go out and talk to the pitcher and it doesn’t charge us a conference.”
And sometimes the catcher has to deliver a don’t-shoot-the-messenger talk that was initiated by the coach in the dugout. “I’ll tell the catcher to go out (to the mound) and ask (the pitcher) if he is all right,” Todd said. “And if he is, then tell him to Cowboy Up or get in the truck, as they say. He can do it instead of me having to go out there and go through all of that.”
The transition has been smooth with only the occasional issue. “There’s been a couple of technical difficulties here and there like a battery going out,” Maynor said, “I’ve got two sets of them that I bring to every game in case one messes up. Once this year one just kind of went haywire so we switched to the other one so it was no problem.”
And there are times in which you never quite know who might been listening in. “There’s been a couple times where the other team’s accidentally got on our frequency – I guess it was accidental — but we’ve got a way we can switch channels and go to another frequency,” Maynor said.
“One time we were on the Church’s Chicken bandwith,” Williams said. “We kept getting chicken orders.”
“You never know what radio guru might be over there in the other dugout,” Todd said.
The technology isn’t as expensive or as extravagant as you might think. At a national coaches convention two years ago, a presentation was made with high-level equipment being demonstrated that went a little overboard (especially financially).
“I went to Walmart and bought a set of walkie-talkies for 40 bucks,” Todd said. “That works fine for us.”
“I spent $60 at Walmart,” said Maynor, who obviously doesn’t shop at the same location.
Now that technology has its foot in the door, there’s bound to be a “next.” Most likely, that would be the use of watches/wristbands which have a digital message that calls pitches the pitcher could see as well as the infielders. (Many colleges are using this system now.)
“I’d be in favor of that,” Williams said. “If you use it right, you are able to implement a lot more things defensively. I wouldn’t like it on offense, but I would on defense.”
“I have no idea how much that would cost, but if you could do it that would be great for pickoff plays and bunt coverages,” Todd said. “But that’s probably a completely different budget system.”
Although, it might just depend on which Walmart you go to.
Contact JJ at johnjamesmarshall@yahoo.com