KANSAS CITY, Mo. – In ballparks from Boston to Seattle, it was the baseball move that automatically triggered fans to scream ‘Balk! Balk!"
We're referring to, of course, when a pitcher fakes a throw to third base, then turns and throws back to first, hoping to catch a napping base-runner.
"It was always so funny to hear the fans yell ‘Balk!' " former Royals pitcher Mark Gubicza said by phone. "It was like they were programmed to yell that every time. It didn't matter where you were or what park you were in, it always got the same response."
Of course, the move wasn't a balk. Not then. It was perfectly legal.
But that has changed.
Major League Baseball recently declared the move a balk. And with the new rule, there was little protest from anyone.
"I think as pitchers and players, we were all kind of tired of it," Gubicza said. "I hardly ever used it. We practiced it, that's for sure.
"We used to dread that part of spring training when we had to practice it, like fielding bunts or covering first base. But those drills you used in games. The fake throw to third…kind of a waste of time."
Gubicza said that during his 14 years in the big leagues, he never once saw the move work to the point of picking off a runner at first.
"I have seen highlights of it working," he said. "It seems to me it worked maybe once every five or six years. It only worked when you had a really slow runner on first who was trying to get a little bit more of a lead, or if someone just fell asleep.
"We used to call it the (former Royal) Steve Busby play. I know he made it work. I don't know if he invented it but he certainly perfected it. I know he got some runners with it because he really worked on it back in his day. You have to really sell the fake to third. He was good at it."
The impetus behind outlawing the move was primarily to speed up the game.
"I can see that," Gubicza said. "It's a small thing but those small things all add up. You get two or three or four of those fake throws a game and that could be eight to 10 minutes of lost time right there."
But Angels manager Mike Scioscia wasn't in favor of eliminating the move.
"Everyone looks at it like you never pick anybody off anyway, but that was never the intent of the move," Scioscia said recently. "It's (designed) to control the jump of the guy at first."
Scioscia suggested, too, that eliminating the move may not speed up the game as much as people think because now teams will instruct their pitchers to simply go ahead and make the throw to third to keep runners close.
The fake throw to third isn't about to completely disappear from baseball, either.
"I help coach high school in California," Gubicza said. "I'm still going to teach my players that move. I wasn't a fan of it but at the high school and college level, you can once in a while catch someone napping at first base and pick them off. It's worth it to get an out."
