Is it "Bush" is it baseball? Your favorite trick play and when you stopped using it.

I coach high school and I've seen teams at this level do that play. Its all about reading the situation really. to decide when to use a trick play you have to realize some things about the other team, and yours. there is a lot that goes into it: is my runner on 3rd heads up and fast enough to score on the play? how are the infielders on the other team? are they going to drop the ball? in this play, usually its the 2nd or 1st baseman who will make the throw home, how are their arms? is my runner on first good at drawing out a long pickle? hows the catcher, is he a good leader who will call the play well? and the situation... you would only want to run that play with less than 2 outs of course. As far as when do you stop using these because they are not real baseball, thats a matter of opinion. These plays are a part of the game whether you like it or not, they are real baseball. im sure youll see from the other thread that there is a little bit of conflicting opinion on this. but the fact is that they are a part of the game. check out this play in the MLB.      https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I5wGxsxjmy0

as far as how to defend the play you mentioned, I'd love to hear some conversation about that! In your 12u case, i would agree, just give him 2nd. but, I think it might be defendable at a higher level. i think it might work to have F6 cover second, F3 tail the kid about 10 ft behind as he walks and F4 maybe close in between the runner and 2B.P disengages and runs right at the runner, hopefully coaxing him back toards first since its unoccupied. then P turns and fires home. I'm not sure. id really love to hear some discussion about possible defenses of this play. the thing is, if you give the kid second, not a huge deal (a bit demoralizing though, and it takes off the force.) but in trying to defend the play, it could go terribly wrong. best case: runner on 1b with an out at the plate, maybe even a DP, (super hard to pull off, unrealistic really) worst case: a pile of overthrows, a run scores and 1B makes it to 3B...can really change the tides of the game. Here is an example of that play being run in the MLB. 1B does not start walking before the pitch, but he basically pretends to steal with a terrible jump to bait the catcher. once that rundown is started, its awfully easy for 3B to score, even in the MLB. 

 

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VCtIO2nqjIk

Best way I have seen this play defended and how we defend this play is the following.  Pitcher steps off, ignoring runner at 3rd.  Full arm fake to the MIF covering and turn towards runner prepared to throw.  Our pitchers are taught to do this at all times when this play is run.  We have not had a Runner from 3rd score on us in 5 yrs.  Teams started getting wise to this so they would leave early with the intention of stealing the base.  We would have 2b crash and give it up and we started getting outs from that. 

sounds good! im probably trying to overcomplicate it. What do you mean by having 2B crash? Thanks. 

Ah, this takes me back to my LL days when I had a couple guys who could always score on the catcher's throw back to the pitcher.

 

The MLB clip in CoachZ's post is just a bad play by the defense, and the exception that proves the rule that the first and third plays that work on the small diamond with pre-pubesent players will not work on the big diamond with grown men.  When you run those plays on the 60' diamond or 70' diamond, you're making the assumption that the defense can't play catch, and that's usually a pretty good assumption.   If F1 makes a play on R1 by throwing to F6 or F4, even if there is a rundown and R3 takes off, a grown man (or good HS player) should be able to catch him 99% of the time.

Up until about 12 our lead off and 2 hole guys would always just round first and head for 2nd on any base hit with runners on base and no one on 2nd in front of them.

 

We taught them to just go and only retreat if the ball clearly beat them to the bag.  We created chaos for defenses.  We actually got teams to try to do it against us.  Because we practiced it we could defend it.  We threw more guys out at the plate and 3rd than I could have imagined.  The lead runners really need to know what they are doing. Good team speed helps with this kind of stuff.  Station to station guys can't make it work.

Not really a trick play but from 10-12 yrs old or so, opposition would have runner at third. He would lead off. We would have a set play where the catcher would throw a bullet to 3B. Normally the runner would be in the way of the throw. The runner would naturally duck. When he ducked, he would stop running and we would tag him out. Helps to have a strong-armed catcher and a good glove at third. 

Not really a trick play either, but son was always taught if he was in a run down and a defensive player was within reach, to reach out and push him. Most every time he would be awarded the base.

He would watch the opposing team to see how they handled a run down if he had the opportunity. And if he could get to third , sometimes he would get into an intentional rundown and reach out and push the defended when he got to close. 

He did not do this often but it worked all through HS varsity. 

Huh?  Like you are in a pickle from second to 3rd and the runner should go to third and push the 3rd basemen, like physically lay hands on the guy who had the ball?

Sprint to the base path and take the throw.

My opinion don't waste one second of practice or game time on a play that won't be used later in high school or college against a good team.  Even in high school I don't like doing anything against a bad team that I wouldn't do against a good team.  Practice to beat the good teams not the bad teams.  So to answer the question of when to stop using them I say immediately.   And better if you never started.  To execute these things properly takes a lot of practice time.  Isn't there something you could be doing to make the kids better baseball players?  And while 1st and 3rds aren't necessarily considered trick plays we still did not see a single one all season by us or against us last year and not likely to see it much more this coming season.

I agree 100% with the above.

My son has been playing baseball for 23 years and only once did he see a trick play while in the game(hidden ball) executed properly (college). They are not USUALLY a part of the college or the pro game.  

Learn to play the game the right way, not in ways to fool or trick your opponent,

I coached from 7/8 rec through 16u with a bunch of fifteen year old freshman. I never wasted time on trick plays. I figured practice time was too valuable. There was always something important to be learned or mastered to take the next step in baseball. 

 

However, I did see a good play pulled on my son in 14u. He learned his lesson. It never happened again. He was on first in a first and third. He broke for second on the first pitch. The catcher appeared to be throwing to the second baseman cutting off the throw. My son pulled up and went into second standing up. He was tagged out by the shortstop who took the faked cutoff throw on a bounce. My son has always gone hard into second ever since.

When we got to 12U the 1st and 3rd send the runner from 1st was pretty standard move.  Saw all kinds of ways teams tried to stop it.  Throw to 3rd, crashing MI, back to pitcher, pump fakes etc.  We did them too. 

 

I said to our head coach at practice one day, Since on a lot of these plays runners don't get especially good jumps because they don't want to get picked off and don't expect a play what do you think would happen if we just threw it through to get the back runner.  I said we will get outs instead of 2 in scoring position.  With 2 outs we can end the inning. We told our pitcher to fake like he was catching the ball to hold the runner at 3rd.

 

Next tournament we threw out 4-5 runners and killed innings.  The look on a few of the runners face was pretty funny.  They never expected the ball to show up and had been running wild for a couple of years that it was a total shock for them.  We gave up a couple of runs but actually caught a few napping on 3rd and held them there. 

 

We knew we were on the right track when one of the guys we coached against who had been a MILB up to AA I think and was always one up on us said after the game...I guess we aren't playing kiddie ball anymore. 

 

They don't do that in proball, generally. 

 

If that happens you know the next guy up at bat is going to get hit somewhere.

 

Why not teach young players to induce a ground ball either by a sinker, off speed pitch?  

 

Oh wait I forgot..... its all about winning at that age.

 

I am so glad that at that age we had coaches (and they were ex MLB) who taught son the way you are supposed to play the game.  

 

JMO

 

Your post doesn't seem to make much sense TPM. Did you land in the wrong thread or something?

I was responding to the above post.

Making people think by the response of the former AA guy this takes place in pro ball. 

Maybe years ago, not now, generally.

Telling the pitcher to fake like he was holding the runner at third (with ball in hand) is IMO, inappropriate.   Generally,  with runners in scoring position, the pitcher strives to keep the ball on the ground (if it goes in play) for the DP. 

Why not teach the right way to young players?

Sorry if I wasn't clear.  The pitcher faked like he was catching the throw from the catcher that was going down to 2nd base.  It was a common tactic to try to trap the runner off 3rd base that was used buy a lot of teams.

 

We were the first team in our area to start throwing through like they do at higher levels which is why we got the comment from the guy who had played pro ball.  His teams never ran any of those plays defensively but definitely took the base in 1st and 3rd spots.  It was the first inning and we nabbed one of his guys that hadn't got a particularly good jump and his guy at 3rd got stranded. 

 

He said it in an approving sort of way.