The hidden-ball trick is defined as “a time-honored legal ruse in which a baseman conceals the ball and hopes that the base runner believes it has been returned to the pitcher. When the runner steps off the base, he is summarily tagged out with the hidden ball.” The dying art dates back to the early days of pro baseball. With the invaluable help of many others, author Bill Deane has spent decades compiling a list of 264 successful executions of the trick in the major leagues. This puts the rarity of the play roughly in the class of the no- hitter.

My old friend Bill and his publisher graciously permitted the use of the story below, which focuses on hidden-ball tricks up to 1920, in last year’s number of Base Ball: A Journal of the Early Game. It is extracted from Finding the Hidden-Ball Trick: The Colorful History of Baseball’s Oldest Ruse, by Bill Deane, recently published by Rowman & Littlefield (http://goo.gl/1B3lQV). Upon reading it in manuscript, I commented: “Bill Deane is a magician. Spinning out the story of baseball’s most ancient sleight of hand, he draws your attention to a game, a date, a perpetrator, and a victim. Yet all the while he is weaving his way — and yours — to a unique view of the game’s whole history. Devilishly ingenious, this is a gem of a book.”

Bill served as Senior Research Associate at the Baseball Hall of Fame from 1986–1994. He has authored hundreds of articles and seven books, including Baseball Myths (Scarecrow, 2012). He served as managing editor of Total Baseball, and has done consulting work for the likes of Roger Kahn, Bill James, and Topps Baseball Cards. In 1989, Deane won the SABR– Macmillan Baseball Research Award for his book, Award Voting. In 2003, Deane won the Utica-Cooperstown SABR chapter’s “Cliff Kachline Award.” Most recently, SABR named him as a 2015 recipient of its prestigious Henry Chadwick Award.

I first started “collecting” hidden-ball tricks in the 1980s. Employed as Senior Research Associate for the National Baseball Library from 1986–1994 and working on my own projects after hours, I spent hundreds of hours a year doing research for myself and others. Inevitably, I stumbled across interesting tidbits which had little or nothing to do with what I was working on, and I kept various lists based on these findings. Many of these feats, like three-pitch innings, and scoring from first base on a single, turned out to be not as uncommon as I thought. But the hidden-ball trick held up as a rare and remarkable event, roughly as uncommon as a no-hitter.

My project blossomed thanks to the internet and considerable help from others. To date, I have documented 264 successful executions of the HBT in the major leagues.

The New Dickson Baseball Dictionary defines the hidden-ball trick as “a time-honored legal ruse in which a baseman [I’d say “infielder”] conceals the ball and hopes that the baserunner believes it has been returned to the pitcher. When the runner steps off the base, he is summarily tagged out with the hidden ball.”[1] SABR member Eric Sallee gives a good explanation of what is required for the play to be successful, saying “the sun, the moon, and the stars all have to be in alignment in order for it to work:

1. Play cannot be ‘dead,’ i.e., time is not ‘out’;

2. The pitcher cannot be touching or straddling the pitching rubber;

3. The umpire has to be alerted or paying attention;

4. A bonehead runner must be willing to take a lead off a bag before the pitcher toes the slab; and

5. The bonehead runner’s teammates and base coaches all have to be asleep, as well.”

The hidden-ball trick (HBT) is almost as old as baseball itself. It has been said to date back to Harry and George Wright of the 1869 Red Stockings, but 19th century baseball expert Peter Morris scoffs at the notion of that team resorting to such deceptive ruses. Another source credits National Association utilityman Tom Barlow with the innovation. The earliest HBT I have documented occurred on May 20, 1872, in a Philadelphia–Baltimore NA game; it was described as an “old trick” as early as 1876. In any case, it dates back more than 140 years, and has happened to end games and to complete triple plays. It once resulted in two arrests, another time cost a Hall of Famer a managing job, and it even happened in a World Series. With TV monitors in the clubhouses and professional coaches at the bases, the play was still pulled off twice in 2013.

Following are accounts of 10 successful pre-1920 executions of the hidden-ball trick:

Dan Brouthers

Date: June 17, 1884

Teams: Buffalo Bisons vs. Chicago White Stockings (NL)

Perpetrator: Buffalo first baseman Dan Brouthers

Victim: Billy Sunday, Chicago

According to The Sporting Life, “Brouthers, in one of the games with Chicago last week, worked a very old trick on Sunday. The latter had made a good base hit and was safe on first. The guileless Daniel had thrown the ball back to [pitcher Billy] Serad (in his mind), when Sunday slipped off the bag. Dan jerked the ball from under his arm and touched him out before the Chicago right fielder knew what happened. Any player stupid enough to be caught in that manner deserves a fine.”[2] Buffalo won the game, 8–7 in 10 innings. Brouthers was on his way to the Hall of Fame; Sunday was on his way to a long career as an evangelist.

Date: September 28, 1893

Teams: Pittsburgh Pirates vs. New York Giants (NL)

Perpetrator: Pittsburgh first baseman Jake Beckley

Victim: John Montgomery Ward, New York

According to the New York Sun, “It was in the ninth inning and Ward had made a single. Of course John was tickled to death and did not observe that the ball was passed to Beckley. [Mike “King”] Kelly was coaching at first and he, of course, did not see the renowned [pitcher Ad] Gumbert make an effort to get in a position to pitch, and Ward stepped from the bag. The instant he did so Beckley touched him out, and there were roars of laughter all around. John kicked, but he was out, and the umpire told him so. It was somewhat humiliating for the little manager, but it had to go.”[3] For Ward, considered the most intelligent man in baseball in the nineteenth century, it was the second time in four months he had been caught on the trick. Kelly — like Ward and Beckley, a future Hall of Famer — was in the closing days of his colorful career; a year later, he would be dead.

Billy Sunday

Date: October 9, 1907

Teams: Detroit Tigers (AL) vs. Chicago Cubs (NL)

Perpetrators: Tigers second baseman Germany Schaefer and third baseman Bill Coughlin

Victim: Jimmy Slagle, Cubs

The hidden-ball trick has even been executed in the World Series, though most sources don’t account for it (The World Series has it as a pickoff, Tigers pitcher George Mullin to Coughlin).[4] In the first inning of Game 2 of the 1907 Fall Classic, according to The Sporting Life, “Slagle was passed, stole second and got to third on [catcher Freddie] Payne’s wild throw, but was caught napping on the ‘hide-the-ball’ trick, Schaefer to Coughlin.” The 1908 edition of Spalding’s Official Base Ball Guide said “Coughlin working that ancient and decrepit trick of the ‘hidden ball’ got ‘Rabbit’ Slagle as he stepped off the third sack.” According to author Stephen D. Boren, Schaefer caught a pop fly, then joined Coughlin in a conference with Mullin, during which Coughlin secreted the ball under his arm. After the tag, umpire Hank O’Day yelled, “You’re out. Where did the ball come from?”[5]

Bill Coughlin

Date: May 13, 1908

Teams: Detroit Tigers vs. Boston Red Sox (AL)

Perpetrator: Tigers third baseman Bill Coughlin

Victim: Amby McConnell, Red Sox

In the third inning, rookie McConnell hit a bases-clearing triple. As player-turned-sportwriter Tim Murnane wrote in the Boston Globe, “About the meanest thing known to baseball occurred at this point. With Cy Young coaching, the ball was fielded to Coughlin, who tucked it away under his arm, and McConnell, supposing the pitcher had it, moved off the base and was touched out. This is one trick as old as the game that should never be allowed to go in baseball…. Hiding the ball is an ancient trick, and long since barred from the game by custom. No Boston player has been allowed to attempt the trick since Harry Wright declared it was unsportsmanlike and an insult to the spectators.” The Detroit Times replied, “News of the barring of the play is fresh out this way. It has always been understood heretofore that the baserunner was supposed, with the assistance of his coacher, to take reasonable care of himself and not be caught napping against any such transparent stratagem.”[6] It’s interesting that Murnane would take such umbrage at the play: back on September 20, 1875, he pulled it on Cincinnati’s Emmanuel Snyder to end a National Association exhibition game.

Coughlin is the all-time leader, with nine documented tricks (at three positions) in the majors. According to his 1943 obituary, “When only 3 years old, he picked up a revolver and pulled the trigger, the discharge tearing off the finger next to the thumb on his left hand. He attributed that accident to making it possible for him to execute the hidden ball trick, as he had a special mitt made for his hand.”

Merkle Ball, Sept 23, 1908

Date: September 22, 1910 (first game)

Teams: New York Giants vs. Chicago Cubs (NL)

Perpetrator: Giants first baseman Fred Merkle

Victim: Johnny Evers, Cubs

The Giants’ Fred Merkle is forever remembered for his September 23, 1908 “boner,” when he failed to advance to second base on an apparent game-winning hit, and was called out when Cubs second baseman Johnny Evers retrieved a ball and touched the base, forcing Merkle for the third out and nullifying the run. The game wound up a tie, replayed at the end of the season, and resulting in a Cubs victory to win the pennant by one game over the Giants.

Merkle could never live down that humiliation, but he did gain a measure of revenge. It happened in New York in the first game of a doubleheader against the Cubs. According to I.E. Sanborn of the Chicago Tribune, “A feature of the day not indicated in the tabulated summary occurred in the first game when J. Evers was made the victim of a mothball scented trick by none other than Fred Bone Merkle…Evers was on first with none out in the fifth inning, having just accepted his third straight pass from [Louis] Drucke. The hurler pegged across to first to drive him back. Merkle went through the time worn motion of bluffing to return the throw, but holding the ball. Evers yanked his foot off the bag. Merkle stabbed him and the umpire saw it. There was great joy among the bugs who dearly love the Trojan, we don’t think so. What made it all the more noteworthy is that tomorrow is the anniversary of ‘Merkle day’ at the Polo grounds. Just two years ago tomorrow Merkle gave Chicago it’s [sic] third pennant by forgetting to touch second.”[7]

Date: July 14, 1912 (first game)

Teams: St. Louis Cardinals vs. New York Giants (NL)

Perpetrator: Cardinals third baseman Wally Smith

Victim: Fred Snodgrass, Giants

According to the New York Times, “Wally Smith pulled ‘the hidden ball trick’ at the expense of Fred Snodgrass in the sixth inning, and it probably saved the game for [pitcher] Bob Harmon…[Beals] Becker hit with Snodgrass on the ‘hit and run,’ whacking a single to right field, Snodgrass taking third base…. However Snodgrass forgot to follow the ball, Smith hiding it in his glove, and when Fred stepped off the bag, Wally tagged him. Umpire Bob Emslie, who was making base decisions, said that he did not see the play, but Umpire [Mal] Eason, who was working behind the bat, saw it and waved Snodgrass out.”[8] It was a critical play, as the Cards won, 3–2. Interestingly, Snodgrass — who would become infamous for a fatal World Series error later this year — had been similarly tricked by the Cardinals two years before, with Emslie calling him out, but Cy Rigler overruling his fellow arbiter, nullifying the play.