Sign, Pitch, Language, Wittgenstein

Ludwig Wittgentstein begins his Philosophical Investigations with a quotation from St. Augustine about learning a language. Here it is, translated from the Latin:

"When they (my elders) named some object, and accordingly moved towards something, I saw this and I grasped that the thing was called by the sound they uttered when they meant to point it out. Their intention was shewn by their bodily movements, as it were the natural language of all peoples: the expression of the face, the play of the eyes, the movement of other parts of the body, and the tone of voice which expresses our state of mind in seeking, having, rejecting, or avoiding something. Thus, as I heard words repeatedly uded in their proper places in various sentences, I gradually learnt to understand what objects they signified; and after I had trained my mouth to form these signs, I used them to express my own desires."

Wittgenstein boils down Augustine's paragraph into a few statements: "Every word has a meaning. This meaning is correlated with the word. It is the object for which the word stands. (1)" The meaning of a word, or a sign, is the very object it symbolizes, or stands for. The meaning, the soul of the word, according to Augustine's passage, is outside of the word. It is the object, the thing, the thing in itself. Wittgenstein wants to annihilate this conception. He wants to uncover the riches of just what language can be and to find out just how much we are missing in our common conceptions of language and its use.

Wittgenstein goes on to probe our various definitions of language until each one falls apart, using the concept of a language game as his destructive tool. A language-game, for Wittgenstein, is a "primitive language" or a language defined by a small set of rules, existing in a closed system. His example is the "builders language" of section 2, in which the only words ("slab", "pillar," "block", "beam") are used by builders when addressing their assistants. The meaning of each of these words is for the assistant to go fetch one of the four items, and bring it back to the builder.

Wittgenstein looks at how complicated the meanings of words can become despite the primitive nature of this language-game. One interpretation of the meaning of the words is to say that the words stand for the four different kinds of objects themselves. Another is to say that the combination of the object and the action of its fetching consist of the meaning of the word. A third way is to think of the words as not words at all, but sentences, which state: "Bring me a slab/pillar/block/beam."

Translocate our current thoughts about this "builder" language-game to the silent hand gesture language that catchers and pitchers use to communicate which pitch should be thrown next in a baseball game. Many elements are simple. There are only a few words, and we can understand their definition in the same way as the "builder" language-game. A single index finger, pointed downwards, can be thought to stand for a fastball pitch. It can also be said to be the combination of the concept of a fastball and the demand to throw on at that particular moment. A third way to describe it's meaning could be as a sentence: "Throw a fastball." If we include the possibility of the pitcher using his only word, which is a head shake that denies, authoritatively, the catcher's word, then we can say that the index finger pointed downward can also have this meaning: "Will you throw a fastball?"

St. Augustine would say that one finger means: fastball. And that two fingers means: curveball. And three fingers means: 2-seamer. And so on. But, in doing so, he is denying the many layers of meaning that exist outside of simple object symbolism. It is not wrong, of course, to say that the meanings in the silent language between pitchers and catchers lie in the types of pitches that can be thrown, but it is wrong to deny the infinity of possibility in meanings that we can draw from the language when we consider a baseball game in its entirety.

Consider this hypothetical situation: It is the top of the seventh inning, with no runners on, and Chris Coste, a right-handed Major League backup catcher steps to the plate. He is facing Carlos Marmol, a right handed relief pitcher with an effective slider. Geovany Soto is catching for Marmol, and, given the rules of Baseball and the desires of each team to win the game, he and Marmol would like to see Chris Coste get out. Soto puts down three index fingers, a sign which means (in a simple understanding) "slider," and then touches the inside of his right knee. This second sign means (again, in a simple understanding) that the pitch should be on the outside part of the plate.

Wittgenstein's St. Augustine would say that there are two words. One, the three fingers pointed downward, means: slider. And two, the touch to the inside of his right knee means: a pitch that is on the outside part of the plate. His explanation of events that follow would be that Marmol sees these two words, thinks of the objects that they stand for, and then goes from there.

Is it so simple? Wittgenstein would say no. There are many questions to ask St. Augustine. Do the three fingers stand for a more general or universal slider, or Carlos Marmol's particular slider? Do they stand for the particular pitch of Carlos Marmol that most conforms to everyone's general expectations of what a slider is? Do they stand for the event of Carlos Marmol throwing a pitch that most baseball experts would agree is a slider? Do they stand for "Carlos Marmol's third pitch in his arsenal" which happens to be a pitch that most people would say "slider" if they saw it? Does they stand for "this unique pitch-event that is about to happen" or do they stand for "the aggregate of every 'slider' you, Carlos Marmol, have ever thrown?" It seems that we cannot simply say what the sign "stands for," because it does not stand for just one thing, but many things.

Wittgenstein would have us look further, and see what we can pull from this seemingly simple conversation between Soto and Marmol. To start, we can do what we did before and think of the different simple meanings those two signs could have. We could come up with grammatical rules that define how they are to be understood, like this one: "Location always follows pitch-type." We could examine the various different simple meanings or translations for the signs, as we did above.

We can also consider the signs in the context of the entirety of the baseball game. Couldn't an equally convincing meaning for the three fingers pointed downward be translated into English as: "Throw a slider next, because Chris Coste is a fastball hitter who likes to swing early in the count. He looks fastball, and will swing at your slider, because your slider looks like a fastball when it comes out of your hand, and, with proper positioning, he will swing at it as though it were a fastball. Because sliders break away from the batter, there is a good chance that he will swing and miss, giving him one strike and putting you, Carlos Marmol, ahead in the count."?

It is possible to answer, yes, but that particular meaning, or at least the parts concerning justification and intention, seem more to be context for the language and less the meaning of the word. Perhaps it is better to say that at any given time, a sign's meaning must be analyzed with its context, and cannot be readily separated from that context, which is the collection of conditions given by that particular and unique game in which the sign appears. If we take that to be true, we could never understand the three finger symbol until we understood the conditions of the game and the justification of the intentions of the speaker of that symbol.

This opens up a bigger philosophical quandary: if we are to understand the meanings of signs as being dependent on their particular in-game context, we need to understand the meaning of the language of these particular signs as a whole in a game.

Let's make some propositions about the intentions of the languge first:

1) The goal of any pitcher catcher team is to get 3 outs per inning while allowing the fewest possible runs
2)Catchers and Pitchers are aware enough of the game that they fully understand the context in which every sign is thrown
3)It is usually better to throw the fewest possible pitches to reach the goal of 3 outs

The first thing we can see is that each sign given by the catcher contains within itself its own destruction-- the pitcher-catcher language, if it follows it's guiding intentions, seeks to use the fewest possible words to end the conversation. Hidden in the layers of meaning in the word "Three finger sign" we can see it's suicidal meaning. The sooner the conversation is over, the better. Each sign given seeks to end the inning, and to therefore end itself.

The second notion that emerges from these three propositions is that the meaning of each sign is grounded in the intentions of the catcher (and, if he is a good catcher, we can assume his intentions are synchronous with those of his teammates) to avoid runs and achieve 3 outs. So, given his knowlege of the situation, a single finger pointed down means not just "throw me a fasball," but also: In this particular context, a fastball in this location will give us greater odds of achieving an out and avoiding runs than any other pitch.

And so, we see that, through this notion of "odds", the signs contain within their meaning a fundamental unknowable, unsignifiable, and alien element: the reality of the situation that will follow after the sign. The sign's meaning, it seems, points towards the best situation achievable directly after the pitch. When the catcher points 4 fingers downwards and taps his outside knee, he is asking for a sinker low and away, which we can assume is the most likely pitch to achieve an out. Let's look at a particular context and see how that meaning becomes richer and begins to incorporate these unknowable factors.

There is a slow runner on first, and there is one out in the inning. The pitcher has an effective sinking fastball, which more often then not, when hit, produces a ground ball in the infield. Ground balls are generally the most reliable way to achieve a double play, which, in this particular context, is the best possible outcome that can be expected from one pitch. The sinking fastball produces ground balls most of the time contact is made. However, let's more details to the situation and get a richer context for the meaning of the sign.

The count, as it stands, is one ball and two strikes. The pitcher has two good pitches in his arsenal: a sinking fastball and a deceptive change-up. Not counting foul balls and pitches outside the strike zone, the sinking fastball is hit in some fashion by same-handed hitters 70% of the time, while the change-up is hit only 50% of the time, and only 20% of the time after it follows 3 or more fastballs. However, when contact is made on the change-up, it tends to produce a safe hit much more often than the sinking fastball.

The pitcher has thrown 3 sinking fastballs to this batter so far. Two have been fouled off, and one has been outside the strike zone. We see that there is no obvious choice for a pitch. If the pitcher throws a fastball in the strike zone, there is a good chance it will be put into play, which could potentially result in a double-play, which would be the best possible outcome. However, if the pitcher throws the change-up, there is a good chance the batter will be struck out, which is the play that involves the least amount of immediate risk of a run scoring. However, the pitcher will then have to face another batter, while the double-play will end the inning.

So, when that catcher points four fingers to the ground, the meaning of the sign is not only linked to a particular pitch and location, but also contains within it a huge unknowable element, and what can only be described as a guess about the results from the pitch. It says "here is what we hope happens," but also cannot help but also mean, "by putting the ball in play, we forfeit many knowable things-- we are now depending on our fielders to make a play and depending on the hitter to hit the way we think he might hit." The desired outcome is actually an unknowable situation, whereas the desired outcome of the meaning of a change-up sign is entirely knowable: a strikeout. Thus, the meaning of the four finger sign is more of a open ended sentence. We might even interpret it as a question: what will happen? Given the context, it's meaning is purposefully hazy.

This shows that the meaning of the signs cannot just stand for a pitch, or a general pitch, or a type of pitch, etc. The meaning of the sign is always related to context, and the meaning becomes clearer or hazier depending on the knowledge of potential outcomes and their likelihood.

Baseball has an enormous history, which has been (for the most part) recorded in detail. With such an enormous context, we can begin to understand just how difficult it is for a player on the field, the catcher, to have such a perfect understanding of each particular context and situation in each game. The chaos, or the unknowable, extend further into the meaning of each sign as we consider how, despite knowing certain kinds of odds and facts about plays in the past, a new, unexpected play is always possible. Despite baseball's long, storied, and well-documented history, it is entirely possible that something brand-new and unique will occur. The sign must account for that possibility in its meaning, and when a sign asks that the desired outcome be put in the hands of the fielders, it might even be suggesting such a play as being the most valuable.

So the catcher and the pitcher, knowledgeable in both their own personal histories with the game and the histories of the game as a whole, speak to each other with these signs in many layers, depending on each other to know the context as well as it can be known and to see the signs as clearly as the signer intends them. And so, when a pitcher shakes his head, where is the disagreement? Is it a refutation of the catcher's judgment, or a disagreement with the interpretation of the context itself? Or, like all shifting areas of meaning in language, somewhere in between?

And so we seem farther from meaning and farther from a comprehensive appreciation for this one small part of the language of signs in baseball. And yet, when contemplating language in its infinite complexities and possibilities, one always seems to arrive here, in this place of not-quite-good-enough understanding, with many more ideas, and many fewer solid concepts. Language, like baseball, is fluid, and in a game of infinite possibilities it seems only right that it's language should be equally infinite in its depth.