Little League coach text messages signs

That title sounds like a joke, doesn't it? Well, it's not.

Mike Dies, a coach in the West Akron Baseball League in Ohio, has decided to stop using hand and arm motions to signal signs to players and coaches. Instead, he sends text messages throughout the game:

This is what he does: When one of his players reaches first base, Dies, who coaches from the bench, texts his first-base coach.

''Send him on the third pitch,'' the text reads.

Then, Dies puts the cell phone back in his pocket and watches his runner execute the steal.

''When we were coaching the kids in G-League (11-12), the kids were having trouble getting the signs,'' Dies said. ''So this year in H-League (8-10), we figured we'd still do the signs at the beginning of the season. But the kids were still having trouble getting the signs.''

Then, Dies figured out the problem.

''It was the coaches,'' he said, jokingly. ''It wasn't the kids at all. The coaches were missing the signs.''

I didn't know that figuring out baseball signs in Little League was all that difficult. If the kids, or in this case the coaches, can't decipher a coach's signs, then they're probably not easy enough -- it's not rocket science.

Honestly, the whole thing seems a little embarrassing. But whatever works, right?