Can you hear me now? Prep baseball allows for electronic communication

Baseball is deeply rooted in tradition, perhaps more so than any other sport in the United States.

Change comes slowly. However, in recent years Major League Baseball has made alterations, including a pitch clock, to increase the speed of the game.

That seems to have opened the door in the high school ranks. During the recently-concluded baseball season, electronic communication was allowed for the first time between a catcher and a coach. For CB radio users, imagine calling, “Breaker, breaker, 1-9,” from the dugout to home plate.

Electronic communication is optional, and some have said “no thanks.” Instead, those coaches use the old-fashioned hand signal method to send instructions to the catcher, who then relays the type of pitch and location to the pitcher.

Veteran Belen coach Tom Wisneski, who recently announced his retirement, embraced the new technology, with one exception.

“It’s very sensitive,” Wisneski explained about the Eagles’ equipment, which is basically a small walkie-talkie used by the coaches and an earpiece/receiver attached to the catcher.

“I have to make sure I’m pushing the button exactly or he won’t hear me,” Wisneski said. “Then I get frustrated. We’re lucky that it hasn’t gone flying through the dugout.”

Other than that, the coach and catcher seem to like it.

“It’s a lot quicker to get the signs,” said Eagles’ backstop Brysen Soiles, who just graduated. “There hasn’t been any real sign stealing compared to last year,” when opposing teams would attempt to interpret what the coach was signaling to the catcher, and what the catcher was sending to the pitcher.

Los Lunas used electronic equipment as well, opting for a makeshift apparatus as something of a test-run instead of buying new gear. “Coach Castillo put a little homemade system together,” LLHS head coach Paul Cieremans said about Randy Castillo, the Tigers’ pitching coach. “He put together a great system with an earpiece and a walkie-talkie. It’s been working well.”

Castillo can be seen sitting in the dugout during games, checking information on a laptop while talking into the radio.

“It makes it a lot easier to communicate with our catcher; not guessing and miscommunicating if it’s light or dark or whatever,” Cieremans said.

Belen catcher Soiles, agrees.

“The dugout is really dark and sometimes you’ll get a hand signal, and I wouldn’t see it,” Soiles said. “This is more fool proof.”

“I can be anywhere in the dugout and give him directions,” Wisneski added. “I can ask him questions so he can physically give me the answers.”

As with most things new, there has been some trial and error. Soiles said the audio was accidently turned down once.

“If he (Wisneski) gets mad, he’ll squeeze it and I’ll hear it in my ear,” he said.

BHS started the season using a cell phone and a bluetooth, “which wasn’t working that well,” Wisneski said.

After some research, the coaching staff discovered devices with a wide range of costs, upwards of $1,500 a season to rent. Instead, the Eagles’ booster club purchased the current model at a price tag of about $150.

In part because of the cost, Valencia High School took a wait-and-see approach, but may consider it for next baseball season.

“I don’t think it helps us win games,” said Wisneski, who was always looking for an edge. “I think it helps the game go faster,” which was the original purpose.

Wisneski believes there are some gray areas with electronic communication.

“It’s very unclear what is permissible with it,” he said.

Could coaches give instructions to the catcher about where a player should throw the ball or where the ball bounced on a wild pitch?

“We don’t want to micromanage the game,” the retired Belen coach said. “I haven’t done that, yet.”