MLB Reminds Yankees About Not Using Illegal Hand Signals

On Friday, Keith Olbermann posted a photo of Yankees coaching assistant Brett Weber on Twitter. Weber's job is to sit in the stands behind the plate and chart pitches. In the Opening Day photo, he's wearing a headset and apparently giving hand signals to Yankee players on the field.

Olbermann said that Weber's gestures were "not suggestive of sign-stealing or anything like that", but MLB decided to look into the matter anyway. A spokesman said: "Communicating pitch types, pitch speed, through hand signals, is prohibited. We're going to call them to remind them what the rule [bulletin C-4] says."

Anthony McCarron, Daily News: "Some Yankee hitters waiting on-deck look for pitch speed from that employee instead of on the scoreboard ... believing the staffer [with his own radar gun] is more accurate. That would seem to be against the rules laid out in the bulletin."

Brian Cashman called the whole thing "silly" (though he did say the team would now abide by the rule) and made a crack about the "psychotics that obsessed about it all day". Cashman said that the stadium scoreboard radar gun was not working properly; according to an MLB.com reporter, one pitch was clocked at over 900 mph.