In lieu of actual baseball, I’ll be posting snippets that were cut from The Baseball Codes as a way of amusing myself and, hopefully, you. Today’s theme: Peeking (batters subtly glancing backward in an effort to pick up the catcher’s signs or location).

Some notable names have been named as possible peekers. In 2003, an anonymous coach told the Seattle Times that Ken Griffey Jr. had a curious habit of calling time once the pitcher came set, at which point he’d look down to see the catcher’s location. Bob Gibson said that Hank Aaron used to do it, and that Willie Mays was “one of the great peekers of all time.”

“Mays was peeking at [Cardinals catcher Tim] McCarver and saw something he didn’t understand,” wrote Gibson in Stranger to the Game. “So he stopped his warm-up swings, stepped out of the box, and said to McCarver, ‘Now, what was that pitch? What in the hell are you doing back there?’ I couldn’t believe the guy.”