By LOU PAVLOVICH, JR.
Editor/Collegiate Baseball

LOS ANGELES, Calif. — Ethics in baseball is always closely scrutinized.

For instance, is it ethical to teach batters to purposely get hit by pitches?

Or what about batters purposely faking a hit by pitch?

Is it ethical to doctor playing fields so the home team has an unfair advantage? Or is this part of the game tolerated?

There also is the question of whether stealing signs is proper or not. Some coaches feel it is perfectly acceptable as long as one is not using binoculars to “spy” on the enemy or use television cameras posted beyond the centerfield fence to focus in on signs given by opposing catchers and relayed to batters so they know what is coming.

Almost everyone in the game looks down on coaches who order pitchers to purposely throw at batters. But what about the coach who directs his pitcher to throw at the home plate umpire and have the catcher duck in an effort to physically hurt the umpire?

The game of baseball has been full of controversial ethics questions through the years and rarely discussed in an open forum.

Some coaches relish the game when inventive characters dream up new ways to win games. Others in the game call these coaches cheaters who make a travesty out of the grand old sport of baseball.

The late John Scolinos, former Hall of Fame head baseball coach at Cal Poly Pomona and winner of over 1,000 games, saw it all in his illustrious career.

“Regardless of the score, you must keep your poise,” said Scolinos.

“When you lose your poise, some coaches revert to cheating to win. And this jeopardizes the team. It makes college baseball look bad. College baseball should be kept at a high level.

“But to be honest, baseball coaches as far as I’m concerned are an outstanding bunch of men. Baseball coaches are superior men, for crying out loud. But when I hear about unethical conduct by coaches who instruct their pitchers to throw at the home plate umpire while the catcher ducks or things of this nature, it upsets me. I don’t give a kick how much anyone hates an umpire. That’s premeditated murder. All coaches should establish a proper ethical conduct.”

Several years ago in Southern California, an ethics question was brought to the forefront when an unusual form of the “Double Squeeze” play was performed against Chapman College.

Here is how the play works, which has been handed down through the years from the coaching ranks.

With runners on second and third and less than two outs, the batter bunts the ball toward the first baseman as the runner on third breaks for home. If the bunt is successful, the only option is to throw the batter out at first base as the second baseman covers.

With the normal two man umpire crew which works the vast majority of college baseball games throughout the USA, the home plate umpire positions himself for the potential play at home while the other umpire, initially positioned on the third base or first base side of second base behind the pitching rubber, runs toward first base for the potential play there.

Neither umpire is watching the second base runner.

While all this is going on, the runner on second, who has a sizable lead, breaks initially for third base and then takes shortcut in front of third base and scores easily. He doesn’t come within 10 feet of touching third base.

If you are former Long Beach St. Head Coach Mike Weathers, a victim of this play when he coached at Chapman, you are calling the play “unethical and sad.”

Umpires In Tough Spot
Weathers said the play puts a 2-man umpire crew in an extremely vulnerable situation.

“It’s extremely tough to stop this play from being successfully executed from the perspective of the umpires if they have never seen it before,” said Weathers.

Veteran college umpire Bud Grainger, who was an arbiter for many a moon and umpired at numerous NCAA Division I regionals and College World Series, said if the play was taught by a coach, it is definitely unethical.

“But there is a simple solution to stopping it,” said Grainger.

“The home plate umpire must pay attention to the runners.”

The coach who ordered the play against Chapman, had this to say.

“Baseball is a game of unethical situations. We have taught this play in practice, but we will never use it again.

“What is considered unethical, and what is ethical in baseball? Is it ethical to doctor fields?

“Is it ethical to purposely get hit by pitches? Is it ethical to steal signs? Is it ethical to throw at batters?

“All these things are done in baseball to win. But my team did something I consider harmless, and we are considered to have crossed the line.”

Wild, Unethical Play
Another diabolical play took place in Southern California years ago which caused many heads to turn.

With the score tied 4-4 going  into the bottom of the ninth, the win at all cost coach flashed the sign to his runner at second base and batter (who had been in a terrible slump) with two outs.

As the opposing pitcher went into his windup, the runner at second base bolted for third.

When the pitch came off the pitcher’s fingers, the batter wound up with a powerful swing.

The bat sailed out of his hands directly toward the third base bag.

The catcher, who caught the offering from the pitcher, gunned the ball to third base in an attempt to throw the base runner out.

What was the third baseman to do?

He not only had a runner and ball coming at him, but a flying projectile in the form of an aluminum bat.

He did the only logical thing.

He got out of the way of the aluminum bat as the ball sailed into left field and the runner rounding third scored easily.

Believe it or not, this was a designed play.

To read more of this story, purchase the Oct. 1, 2022 edition of Collegiate Baseball or subscribe by CLICKING HERE. The rest of the story delves into a number of trick plays that have taken place over the years.

NOTE:  The following is an excerpt from the new book Everything Matters In Baseball — The Skip Bertman Story.

This Hall of Fame coach led LSU to five national championships during his 18-years with the Tigers.

It includes 246-pages and 19 chapters including Skip’s Secrets To Success which delves into 12 areas.

The book can be purchased from Acadian House Publishing (Lafayette, LA) for $30, plus postage and handling.

To purchase this remarkable book, go to: www.acadianhouse.com/sports

By GLENN GUILBEAU
With Leo Honeycutt
© 2022 Skip Bertman Story, LLC

BATON ROUGE, La. — Skip Bertman did not necessarily invent the following principles and practices nor was he the only coach to use them.

But he mastered them like perhaps no other.

The Law Of Averages
“The law of averages says that if I have more guys who can steal home than the other team, and I practice with them, one day it may win for us,” Bertman said.

“Because the law says so. It’s like the lottery. Most people never win, but there’s always one person who wins, because it’s the law.”

Bertman rarely called a steal of home.

“But I want that bullet just in case,” he said.

It was there if he needed it, like the bunt defenses or pick-off plays he practiced with his team and “The Grand Illusion” hidden-ball trick play that worked to perfection against Wichita State in the 1982 College World Series when Bertman was the associate head coach/pitching coach at Miami as the Hurricanes won their first national title.

“I was always most concerned with the law of averages and large numbers in our favor,” Bertman said.

“If one guy’s missing, it matters. If one guy doesn’t practice well, it matters. If one guy has problems with a girlfriend or has bad grades and isn’t paying attention, it matters. In baseball, everything matters.”

Throughout his coaching career, the law of averages was important to Bertman, and he taught the law to his players.

They received a steady diet of videos of high- and low-percentage plays to the tune of The Bobby Fuller Four’s 1966 classic, “I Fought The Law (And The Law Won).”

Bertman remains No. 1 in NCAA post-season career winning percentage as LSU’s head coach at .754 with an 89-29 record. In this regard, he was above the law, so to speak, as he won all five National Championship games he reached in 1991, 1993, 1996, 1997 and 2000.

“You figure you might lose one,” he said.

“I had some good fortune, and I had great players. And maybe if I was a better coach, we would’ve won more earlier on.”

When he says he should have won eight in all, as he often does, he is thinking also of the 1987, 1989 and 1998 teams he took to Omaha.

Bertman also finished his career at 15-0 at Alex Box Stadium in games played with advancement to Omaha or to the Super Regional on the line. (His team was eliminated from NCAA Regional play in Alex Box in 1992 and in 1995, but that was before the championship round — not in a game that had LSU won, it would have advanced.)

Bertman has been playing the percentages since he coached at Miami Beach High from 1965-1975 and with the Miami Hurricanes from 1976-1983 and at LSU from 1984-2001.

In another life, Bertman could have run a Las Vegas casino. In fact, when LSU played at Nevada-Las Vegas in 1991, he told the team, “Guys, Las Vegas is going to win.”

He was referring to the casinos.

“They don’t care if you walk away with a bunch of money, because over the long haul, Vegas wins,” 1989-91 pitcher Paul Byrd remembers Bertman saying.

“Same thing’s true when you pitch. If you get ahead of the hitter, you’ll win,” Byrd said.

“You may have a bad game, but over the long haul, you’ll win. An 0-2 hitter is drastically different than a 2-0 hitter. The importance of putting the percentages in your favor cannot be overstated. He pounded that into us.”

“Skip was the first to make me realize that when the four-hole hitter is 0-for-4 in the bottom of the ninth with the bases loaded, buckle up,” said Doug Thompson, who pitched on LSU’s 1997 National Championship team.

“He’s due, Skip would say,” Thompson recalled.

“That’s how he saw the game. Most people would say, ‘He’s having a bad night. Strike him out again.’ That’s when you give up the home run.”

Thompson always wanted to throw a changeup while at LSU, but Bertman agreed only if he could get it over the plate seven out of 10 times in the bullpen.

“It’s a law,” Bertman said.

“It’s not a real pitch to Skip unless you can throw it where he wants it seven out of 10 times,” Thompson said.

Thompson never hit seven, but Bertman let him try a couple of changeups outside of Omaha.

“Both were absolutely annihilated,” Thompson said.

Oklahoma’s Justin Elsey hit a 2-run home run off a changeup in LSU’s 14-3 win in the NCAA Regional in 1997. And Bertman couldn’t resist: “You happy now, Dougie boy?”

For Bertman, playing percentages added up to five titles.

“It’s not a theory,” he said. “It’s not a principle. It’s a real law. There’s no question about it.”

To read more of this excerpt, purchase the Oct. 1, 2022 edition of Collegiate Baseball or subscribe by CLICKING HERE. The excerpt includes four more areas of Skip’s Secrets To Success, including The Pitching Lab, The Yellow Book, The Shake Off and Why Hiring A Lefty Assistant Coach Was Vital.

By LOU PAVLOVICH, JR.
Editor/Collegiate Baseball

OXFORD, Miss. — The art and science of pitch calling in games is fascinating to study with elite coaches.

Ole Miss Head Coach Mike Bianco, who led the Rebels to their first national championship in 2022, is one of the best in the business at calling pitches.

In this exclusive interview with Collegiate Baseball, Bianco shares what he does to call games for his pitchers that allow them to frustrate hitters.

During games, he is typically flanked by the starting pitcher for the next game and the analytics director with multiple pages of data on opposing hitters between the trio.

In addition two other coaches are close who set the infield and outfield defensive alignment. All of them work in unison when Ole Miss is on defense.

One of the key reasons Ole Miss won the College World Series last June was its pitching staff.

In six games, the Rebels led all teams with a 2.00 ERA and struck out 64 batters while only walking 14 batters over 54 innings.

The person calling all of those pitches was none other than Bianco.

A little background is in order first.

Bianco was a superb catcher during his playing days and was the starting catcher for LSU in 1988 and 1989 as he worked daily with unquestionably the best pitch caller in baseball history in Hall of Famer Skip Bertman. He led the Tigers to five national titles.

From 1993-97, Bianco coached pitchers at LSU (Bertman was the lead pitching coach) along with catchers and also was the third base coach. He coordinated and executed the daily practice schedule and helped with baserunning and recruiting.

Bianco learned every nuance of calling pitches from this giant in the coaching profession and what information and video was essential to gather to make informed calls on virtually any count for each batter.

In addition, Bianco learned how to train pitchers so they ultimately had command of several pitches and could perform in high pressure situations.

As a coach, Bianco has been part of four national championship teams (three at LSU in 1993, 1996 and 1997 and one at Ole Miss in 2022).

“I learned from arguably the best pitching coach and pitch caller in college baseball history in Coach Bertman,” said Bianco.

“He was a catcher in his playing days. When he got into coaching, he became a pitching coach.

“One of the crucial bits of advice he handed down was that if pitching is 70 to 80 percent of the game, why aren’t you involved with the pitch calling during games? That’s why he did it. He felt it was such an integral part of the game.

“It wasn’t just calling pitches. It was also working with the pitchers on a daily basis.

“If you work with the pitchers, some ask the question why it is necessary to call pitches for them. When I was catching for Coach Bertman over two years, there were some people in the 1990s who criticized coaches who called pitches because they felt pitchers didn’t learn how to call games and neither did the catchers.

“They felt that they eventually would have to do that when they got to pro ball.

“I don’t agree with that reasoning. What happened was that pitchers and catchers at LSU under Coach Bertman learned a system that showed you every nuance of developing pitchers in addition to showing them the numbers to look at and video of what opposing hitters were doing so you could exploit their weaknesses in different counts.”

To read more of this in-depth story, purchase the Oct. 1, 2022 edition of Collegiate Baseball or subscribe by CLICKING HERE. Bianco delves into the different charts that are put together by Director of Analytics Chris Goudoras as every number is dissected. They show if a batter is susceptible to swinging at a 3-2 breaking ball and so on. Bianco also delves into how important the law of averages are with opposing hitters, why calling pitches is not simply trying to call a pitch the batter isn’t expecting and not flying by the seat of your pants.

He also explains the foundational principles of attacking hitters through video study and sophisticated analytics through many hours of research for each team they play. Bianco also explains that watching opposing pitchers on video who have similar body builds and throwing motions as Ole Miss pitchers is vital in seeing how hitters from opponents will react to different pitches. He also explains the shake off, pitching against the elite hitter who struggles, in-game corrections for pitchers, the 3-2 count, making adjustments, how pitchers are developed, plus much more.