We Accidentally Signed the First Openly Gay Player in Pro Baseball History – Slate Magazine

Sean approaches pitching with the same studious desire to stay one step ahead. No one else on the Stompers’ staff shakes off signs as often. “I always know what I want to throw, and it’s difficult for the catcher to be thinking along the same lines as me,” he says. (“The slider’s the one I like,” I hear him remind his battery mate Andrew Parker, semi-sarcastically, before a game.) But he still wants his catchers to call pitches, because he can learn from their suggestions even if he rejects them. “My line that I told my catcher last year is, ‘I like when you call pitches, because you confirm to me what the hitter’s thinking I’m going to throw,’ ” Sean says. In other words, Sean considers the catcher a proxy for the hitter: The catcher is trying to outthink the batter, but the batter is alert to the danger of being outthought. Even if the batter reads the catcher’s mind, he’ll still be surprised when Sean does something different. On one pitch during spring training with the Stompers, Sean shakes off the catcher three times, but he keeps putting down the same sign. The fourth time, Sean acquiesces and throws what the receiver wants. It results in the only hit he allows all spring.