State semi-final game yesterday in Colorado. I was at the game because two of the pitchers on the losing side of this game are my students. With two outs and the tying run on second, Rye High School won with this play that made Sportcenter as the SC Top 10 #1 "Play of the Day":
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I've seen this run many times, usually about a 50/50 success rate. The pitcher did make one CRITICAL error, which I've also actually seen cause this to fail miserably. He actually has the ball in his throwing hand when he fakes the throw. The proper way to run this is to never remove the ball from your glove. You fake the throw with a bare hand and immediately begin drifting toward the area between short and third with the ball in your glove, never having shown the ball. The way this pitcher ran it, you can see him "re-glove" the ball. Plus the risk (and where I've seen this fail) is during the fake where he can actually have the ball slip out of his hand and launch it God knows where.
Other than that, it's a great play when the tension is high and you have to have a critical out.
We used to run this play in 9u.
Just me throwing in the umpire's perspective on this.
BU made a critical error here that fortunately didn't cause the play to fail. He anticipated the throw and didn't keep his chest to the ball. If he did, he would have realized that the pitcher still had the ball and would have not had his back to the play.
Part of me thinks that is awesome; part of me screams bush league. Better to do it than have it done to you...
We used to run this play in 9u.
Congratulations! As adults you outsmarted nine years olds. You da man!
