Illegal shift: Korean team attempts to play third baseman behind the catcher
If you thought defensive shifting in Major League Baseball had reached its peak in creativity and absurdity, check out the shift the Kia Tigers of the Korean Baseball Organization (KBO) attempted to pull off during Tuesday’s game KT Wiz.
Your eyes do not deceive. That’s an infielder — in this case, the third baseman — attempting to set up shop behind the catcher.
Why would a third baseman play behind the catcher, you ask? To guard against the always embarrassing, though highly unlikely wild pitch in the middle of an intentional walk.
Not much faith in the pitcher there, huh?
Of course, it does make sense to guard against possibilities, but there’s a reason that strategy has never been used before: It’s illegal.
[Check out Big League Stew on Tumblr for even more baseball awesomeness.]
Only the catcher is allowed to be in foul territory. The seven defenders behind the pitcher must have both feet inside the white lines, though they can obviously play as close to the line or home plate as they wish.
With that in mind. perhaps a better strategy would be to move the first and third basemen in even with the pitcher and have them charging just in case of a wild pitch. Then again, you risk distracting the catcher or the batter actually taking a hack and putting the ball in play. Both could be bad and/or quite dangerous, so our best suggestion would be playing a normal defense and advising the pitcher to hit the target.
We do admire the creativity though, and we encourage them to continue thinking way outside the lines.
BLS H/N: Cut 4
More MLB coverage from Yahoo Sports:
– – – – – – –
Mark Townsend is a writer for Big League Stew on Yahoo Sports. Have a tip? Email him at [email protected] or follow him on Twitter! Follow @Townie813
