Back in the day, stealing signs by the batter peeking back At catcher would instantly get a 4-seamer to rib cage next pitch

I really like that. Great idea

I'll probably use this

Peeking is not tolerated in the pros!!!

The book Money Ball tells of A-Rod peeking.

Yup.

I agree, that’s the old school way to deal with cheating batter peeking to steal signs, but in this politically correct world now, it won’t fly when he beans him to make him stop

@@tylerdurden7387 Players still get thrown at today

I should clarify that I'm talking about a situation where a batter is being obvious about looking at the catcher's signs; that is clear unsportsmanlike conduct, dealing with it before it becomes a problem is preventative umpiring. If the batter is just taking a quick glance to see where the catcher is setting up that's of no concern to me, I'm not there to police the batter's eyeballs... in fact I'm assuming most batters can sense where the catcher is simply by listening and peripheral vision; good catcher mechanics resolves most of this.

That's perfectly allowed and part of the game. An umpire who calls the game differently for a team playing within the rules of the game should not umpire.

@@chaosawaits your screenname seems very appropriate to your answer. chaos indeed awaits.

@@davej3781 yes, dogs and cats... living together... mass hysteria

@@chaosawaits nice working with you, Dr. Venkman

It violates an unwritten rule of baseball. It's bad form.

@@MJHBaseball Thanks for the answer. Luckly I'm not playing baseball, otherwise I would make it become a written rule. I'm the kind of person that would not care about that unwritten rule and just do it. Heck, I would make a special helmet with a rearview mirror so I can watch the pitcher and catcher at the same time.

Keep telling yourself that. Break the rules and you get punished. Better than getting drilled in the ribs.

@@jacobh674 if you think it should be against the rules, write it in the rulebook. Calling a ball as a strike at all, let alone as strike 3, is definitely in the rulebook as a no no. Let the other team take care of it. An umpire's job is to enforce the rules, not the unwritten rules.

@@jacobh674 I get the sentiment, but umpires need to be above that sort of thing. Once an umpire establishes that he will purposely call strike three on a pitch that was clearly out of the strike zone, where does that end? How about if a team's manager is a pain in the ass? Is an umpire justified in using a bigger strike zone on his batters? Or is he justified on "squeezing" the zone on a whiny pitcher? There are any number of ways for the team in the field to deal with peekers, from the catcher setting up late, to sending fake signals, to drilling the batter in the ribs. "Punishing" the batter falls outside the umpire's job description...he needs to call the same strike zone for both teams. What the umpire CAN do is something like this. Batter peeks. Catcher calls him out. Batter peeks again. Batter gets drilled in the backside, or maybe the ribs. Manager protests, "Aren't you going to eject the pitcher?" Umpire responds, "Looked like the pitch just got away from him."