I agree with Mark on this. I stole signs all the time, I just never let the other team know I was stealing them. As far as from a player development stand point, imo, It is better to teach your players what to look for as far as certain "tells" pitchers, catchers and others make that let you know whats coming. Watch any MLB game and you see a batter who launches one low an away from the other batters box, I'm pretty confident he knew what was coming.
SB is always a game of cat and mouse and sometimes the mouse eats the cat. I remember many years ago (when dinosaurs ruled the earth) at a 12U, we had a coach of a team who was notorious for stealing signs. He would pick up the signal then have his girls chant what pitch was coming. So one week-end we were in a tournament that I knew we would be playing this particular coach. In the week prior at the practices I worked with my catcher on how to call pitches. I told her that I would signal in a pitch BUT she was to relay to the pitcher any pitch EXCEPT the pitch I signaled...after the first inning. At the tournament, i made sure to signal in the most elementary and most obvious calls and sure enough the coach took the bait. The sad part was, even knowing what was coming his hitters only managed to scratch out a couple of hits. In the second inning I would signal in a change up and predictably, we would hear a chorus of "CHANGE UP" and a nice fastball down the middle was on its way.
That day our pitcher came away with 17 consecutive K's. (the last girl popped up to first) Of course after every K our girls would chant "STRIKE OUT"
After the game, during the obligatory "good-game" segment the opposing coach called me off to the side and told me I was bush league...
Ya gotta love it.
SB is always a game of cat and mouse and sometimes the mouse eats the cat. I remember many years ago (when dinosaurs ruled the earth) at a 12U, we had a coach of a team who was notorious for stealing signs. He would pick up the signal then have his girls chant what pitch was coming. So one week-end we were in a tournament that I knew we would be playing this particular coach. In the week prior at the practices I worked with my catcher on how to call pitches. I told her that I would signal in a pitch BUT she was to relay to the pitcher any pitch EXCEPT the pitch I signaled...after the first inning. At the tournament, i made sure to signal in the most elementary and most obvious calls and sure enough the coach took the bait. The sad part was, even knowing what was coming his hitters only managed to scratch out a couple of hits. In the second inning I would signal in a change up and predictably, we would hear a chorus of "CHANGE UP" and a nice fastball down the middle was on its way.
That day our pitcher came away with 17 consecutive K's. (the last girl popped up to first) Of course after every K our girls would chant "STRIKE OUT"
After the game, during the obligatory "good-game" segment the opposing coach called me off to the side and told me I was bush league...
Ya gotta love it.