Centralia’s Joe Blaser attempts the hidden ball trick in the bottom of the sixth inning during the 15-year-old District 3 Babe Ruth Tournament championship game against Hoquiam on Monday, July 11 at Pioneer Park in Aberdeen. Time was called due to a motorist flashing his lights in the parking lot just moments before Blaser tagged the Hoquiam runner, however, so the play was nullified.
Some consider it bush league. Others think it’s a low-risk, high-reward momentum shifter.
No matter what you want to call it, the hidden-ball play has become somewhat of a Centralia specialty.
Last weekend in Vancouver, in a 15-year-old Pacific Northwest Babe Ruth Tournament semifinal contest, Centralia second baseman Ty Housden pulled off the maneuver with the game tied in the bottom of the seventh inning and Hazel Dell Metro hitting itself into a late-game rally.
With pitcher Zach Wood gripping thin air in his glove, Housden nonchalantly walked over and put a second-out tag on the HDM runner, who was a few steps off the bag. With Hazel Dell’s momentum stifled, Centralia picked up a quick third out, won the semifinal 8-5 and took the championship game to seal a trip to Jamestown, N.Y. for the World Series.
“It completely demoralized them,” Centralia 15s coach Mike Housden said of the play.
It wasn’t the first time a Centralia team had pulled the trick play this summer. Not by a longshot.
Jake LeDuc, coach of Centralia’s Senior Legion club, noted that his team ran the play nine times this season. It picked up an easy out on six occasions.
“It’s just one of the biggest rally-killers in the world,” said LeDuc. “There is no better way to demoralize a team than to kill a rally like that.”
LeDuc, who played at Centralia High School and Centralia College — where he is now an assistant coach — learned the play while he was in high school. Marc Roberts, who coached baseball in some capacity in Centralia from 1987 to 2010, was the teacher.
“When Randy (Elam) and I were coaching together, we put it in a lot of years ago,” said Roberts. “It was just something we picked up from other teams we played against.”
Ty Housden’s older brother, Cole, played on LeDuc’s Senior Legion squad the last two summers. The little brother, naturally, watched and kept it up his sleeve — or, as it were, in his glove.
Earning the out by deception puts the runner’s hubris in check, while sending a humbling message to the other dugout to play the game with a little more reverence.
“You have to be smart out there and know what’s going on,” said Ty Housden.
The play tends to work best when a runner is too far off base, in a sense disrespecting the other team or not paying attention.
“We talk to our kids very often about not getting off a base until the pitcher is on the rubber,” said LeDuc, referring to (former Centralia College coach Bruce) ‘Pocklington’s Rule’: DO NOT step off the base until the pitcher’s foot is on the rubber.
Since Centralia coaches preach Pocklington’s Rule at pretty much every level of baseball, Hub City teams are keen to notice when the opposition doesn’t abide by the rule.
“(The hidden-ball trick) teaches the kids to stay on the base,” said Mike Housden.
Rarely can the play be used more than once in a game, no matter how arrogant the other team’s base runners are.
“It’s not a play you’d run when you’re up 4 or 5 runs,” said Tenino coach Jesse Elam, who played at Centralia high school and college. “It’s a play when you’re up by one or down by one and you need that out.
“We would run that kind of stuff when we need it in a last ditch effort to get the momentum back on our side,” he said, though he admitted the Beavers, under his watch, have yet to run it.
Baseball players, like illusionists, need perfect timing. A hidden-ball play pulled at the wrong moment won’t necessarily be detrimental to a team’s chances of winning, but can mar how effective the play is in the future. A hidden-ball mishap can also give a team a less-than-admirable reputation in some circles.
“What really makes it a bush-league play is if it doesn’t work,” said former Onalaska baseball coach John Hallead, who played who played five seasons of minor league ball — mostly with in the Colorado Rockies organization. “I mean, if you were to suicide squeeze and it doesn’t work it looks really bad, but if you get the bunt down it looks like a great play.”
The jury is — and always will be — out on whether the hidden-ball trick is a legitimate strategy or a Bad News Bears-esque Little League tactic.
“But, to each his own,” added Hallead. “You have to respect the game as you think it should be respected.”
The frequency of running plays like the hidden-ball trick can tarnish a coach’s or a team’s reputation around the league — even if the play is well within the legal limitations of the game.
“When you use it recklessly it’s not going to work very often and it’ll come back to bit you,” said Elam. “You never want to upset the baseball gods.”
Coaches have to walk a thin line between winning at all costs and playing the sport with a sense of gamesmanship.
“There is always a fine line you have to tiptoe and as a coach you don’t want that reputation,” said Elam. “The pendulum will always swing back and bite you at some point.
“You have to treat baseball like some fickle beast,” he added. “You have to treat it with respect.”
In that sense, the hidden-ball trick is a true spice of life — fantastic when enjoyed in moderation. Any excessive tomfoolery on the diamond — regardless of its no-risk nature — could be construed as disrespectful to the game.
But when a team seizes the moment, pays its respects to the baseball gods and conceals the cowhide for an out, there’s little across the spectrum of sports that can compare.
Roberts was on hand in Vancouver, watching Ty Housden initiate the play in the seventh inning against Hazel Dell Metro.
“I was sitting there and just watched it develop. The umpire saw it and followed the play and you just have to keep you’re mouth shut and hope that it works,” he said. “They ran it to perfection and it was classic.”
