View full sizeChuck Crow, The Plain DealerVinnie Pestano (left) and Carlos Santana assume the position -- gloves covering mouths -- during this recent mound conversation at Progressive Field. "You don't want anyone reading your lips," says reliever Tony Sipp.
Lip Service
- What are they talking about behind those gloves anyway? Usually how to pitch to a hitter or which set of catcher’s signals to use with a runner on second. But sometimes the conversation has nothing to do with baseball.
- Like the situation he once had with struggling pitcher Jerry Reuss.
- “I went out to take him out and he said, ‘Are you trying to take me out?’ and I said, 'You got it.’ And then he says, ‘Well, I think I should stay.’ He said, ‘I think we should do this in a democratic fashion.’ He said, ‘You want me out, I want to stay. Let’s call [catcher Steve] Yeager out here to break the tie.’ So Yeager comes to the mound and I ask him whether I should take Reuss out, and he says, ‘You should have taken him out last inning.’”
- “Chief calls time out and comes out and goes, ‘What are you doing?’ I said, ‘Trying to get Polidor out.’ He said, ‘This is Gustavo [blanking] Polidor!’
- “For the next couple of years, [catcher] Andy Allanson would come out and say, ‘This is [blanking] so and so!’ and we’d always get a good laugh out of it.”
- Such as?
- “None that’s appropriate.”
- --
CLEVELAND, Ohio -- Meetings on the pitcher's mound are held under the cone of silence. It's a conference room where lips are not to be shown, where sounds are not to be made unless it's behind the muffled wall of a baseball mitt.
"It's a closed meeting," said Indians reliever Tony Sipp. "Camera's on you at all times. You don't want anyone reading your lips. If you have anything you want to keep in that circle, you've got to cover your mouth."
When players bury their face in a glove while they talk -- which is the rule, not the exception -- they ensure that what's said on pitcher's mound, stays on pitcher's mound.
It is baseball, after all, where some will resort to just about anything for an edge -- corked bats, nail files to scuff the ball, Vaseline to make it dance or even binoculars to steal a catcher's signs. Two seasons ago, Philadelphia bullpen coach Mick Billmeyer was nabbed on television using binoculars to do exactly that against Colorado.
As it turns out, the game's most famous homer -- Bobby Thomson's pennant-winning "Shot Heard 'Round the World" in 1951 -- may have been aided by a telescope and buzzer system the Giants had installed at the Polo Grounds to steal the catcher's signs, alert the dugout and tip off the batter.
By comparison, lip reading is low-tech and relatively recent.
Indians reliever Vinnie Pestano said he has covered his mouth during mound conferences since high school. He doesn't remember why he started, but it's become a force of habit.
"I don't know where it originated," he said. "It had to come from somewhere."
Loose slips sink victories?
It did, although much of baseball's romance is the thin line between folklore and truth.
As the story goes, in 1989 San Francisco slugger Will Clark stepped up with the bases loaded against the Chicago Cubs in the National League Championship Series. When Cubs manager Don Zimmer came out to talk to pitcher Greg Maddux, Clark, while adjusting his batting glove, claims he saw Maddux mouth the words, "fastball in."
Sure enough, Clark stroked an inside fastball for a grand slam.
Peter Morris, author of "A Game of Inches: The Story Behind the Innovations That Shaped Baseball," said that Maddux and Clark's former teammate, Bob Brenly, refuted the claim, but pitchers and catchers began meeting under cover anyway.
"The point is," Morris said, "[Clark] said it, and there became this paranoia."
Paranoia or perception? It's baseball, after all, where deception is admired -- the hidden-ball trick, phantom tags, decoying runners, groundskeeping the field to your team's advantage -- and espionage within the rules isn't just admired, but rewarded.
Joe Nossek, former major-league player and coach, fashioned a career out of stealing signs. Mainly a platoon player, he spent his time on the bench watching the interplay between the manager, third-base coach and batter to crack their codes for bunts, squeeze plays, steals and the hit-and-run. He even kept a notebook.
When a player was acquired in a trade, Nossek would immediately pull the man aside and drill him for his former team's signs.
But in 15 years as a third-base coach and spy extraordinaire with the Indians and four other teams, Nossek, who lives in Amherst, never tried tapping into mound conversations.
"I guess they've been hiring lip-readers or something," he joked. "With all the technology and the cameras all over the place. ... I've seen it in football, too; coaches covering their mouths with [play sheets]. That's one talent I don't have."
A case of baseball blarney?
Indians starter Josh Tomlin said he's done the glove-over-mouth routine since Little League, although he's not aware of a hitter ever drilling a ball after reading a pitcher's lips.
"But," he said, "I don't want to be the first one to find out."
Former big-league ace Jim Kaat, now an MLB Network broadcaster, said he remembers former Minnesota teammate Jim Perry covering his mouth with his glove way back in the '60s. But catcher Earl Battey would complain he couldn't understand Perry's muffled directions anyway.
Which raises a question: When a Japanese pitcher meets on the mound with his Dominican catcher and American pitching coach, what could their lips possibly be tipping off?
"The hand over the mouth -- that drives me nuts," said Tim Belcher, former Indians pitching coach and major-league pitcher. "I never understood why we started doing that. Most time, when you're out there, it's pretty basic stuff anyway: 'Hey, relax, I'm just giving you a break.'"
Still, you wouldn't want your opponent picking up any covert information, like options for a wedding present in the classic meeting on the mound in the 1988 movie "Bull Durham."
"OK, well, uh. ... candlesticks always make a nice gift," the Bulls' pitching coach suggests to the boys gathered around him. "And uh, maybe you could find out where she's registered and maybe a place-setting or maybe a silverware pattern.
"OK, let's get two! Go get 'em."
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