Skip to main content

At my first college, an NAIA school, we had what we called a "Deke" play in the OF, it worked and I loved it, and I was just wondering if it was technically legal (we always got the call).

Here's the situation: Runner on 3rd, less than two outs. high fly ball in the gap that both the corner OF and CF can reach. One OF lines up directly behind the other, and the first OF runs under the fly ball and acts like he caught it. The OF who was behind him would then make the catch lower to the ground (he usually had to be on a knee to catch it).

The fake catch from the first OF would usually cause the runner tagging to leave early, thus giving my team the appeal at 3rd. Is this legal or could it be called interference for blocking the view of the catch?
Original Post

Replies sorted oldest to newest

Works for me. OBR.
I don't work Fed or Collegiate so won't guess about those. I'm curious to see some comments from those that do.

What if the deeker slapped his glove too?

Or the 3B slaps his glove hoping R3 is going on sound?

Most Deke plays IMO are good, the runner and coaches have to know what's going on. The fake tag; is about a as far as I won't go when it comes to dekes.

I'll give the D the benefit, ex. R3, fly to left fielder and SS "calls I got it".

R3 relaxes and thinks he can't go, too bad.

I think SS was using a secret code that meant "you take it, he's tagging". There's only one ball out there, everybody has to know where it is.
legal for OBR and NCAA and NAIA.

It can be called Obstruction in NFHS.

Obstruction is any act (physical or Verbal) by a fielder "not attempting to make a play"....Obstruction can be intentional or unintentional and it can be by any member of the defensive team or its personnel as long as it changes the pattern of the play.

Now to a real world application, getting a HS team to be able to pull this play off and given the fact that most HS games are umpired by a 2 man crew, might mean you would not see this called obstruction very often.....

But that being said, if you do it in HS, you could get obstruction called on you.....

Add Reply

Post
.
×
×
×
×
Link copied to your clipboard.
×