Forced Play, it’s not strategy

Some definitions of strategy indicate that it is the art of preparing and directing operations unexpectedly. Others indicate that it is the project or program that is prepared on a certain basis to achieve the proposed objective and that is not only confined to war, economics and sport, but is constantly manifested in any social context.

It has applications in all sports disciplines, although in baseball this word is often misused, fundamentally in the play of the ball of sacrifice.

It is not strategic to touch the ball with runner in first or second and second when there is no out in a closed game after half of it, when it comes, for example, to hit a player from the bottom line, let’s say eighth bat or a pitcher in the leagues in which they hit.

That is a forced play in most cases and that the opponent expects, there is no surprise.

However, when a technician after an analysis determines to execute the aforementioned touch of the ball, in an unfeasible situation and surprises the contrary there was a strategy.

A well-known case of this type of surprise action for the enemy was the one led by Servio Borges, the Creole director, in the World Baseball Series held in the Dominican Republic in 1969 and which was decisive in the Cuban victory. United, where they dressed as heroes Gaspar Pérez, Felix Isasi and Rigoberto Rosique.

In the eighth episode, Cuba lost a score by zero to the left-hander Larry Osborne, who was impassable when Lázaro Pérez opened the match by hitting the ball unchallenged, quickly Tony González went out to run in the initial, the touch of Rodolfo Puente then to hit the pitcher and ninth bat called the attention of the mentor of the United States that did not take out a popup by the “Curro” Perez and sent to throw him.

This man was unaware of the offensive quality of the one from Matanzas. After seven foul connections, Gaspar hit a hit line with which Tony scored the tie.

But everything was not there, the most discussed would come later, according to one of its protagonists, the waiter Félix Isasi Mestre:

“After me came Rosique, and he was hitting the left-handed as well as the right. Servio, who had a lot of vision in baseball and knew that, decided that I would play to the surprise of the opponent, since there was already one out and we were giving away the other. “

As if he were back on the grass of Quisqueya Park that August 26th, 1969, Isasi remembers the place where he directed the touch with which Gaspar went to second and adds:

“The American director saw that he was coming to hit a lefty and ordered Osborne to shoot and that is when Rigoberto connected the hit line to the center with which he scored the’Curro’.”

This time the element of cheating the opponent, planned by Servio Borges, worked and Cuba got the victory completed by a sensational job from the mound Gaspar Pérez who in five relief innings did not score, allowed only two hits, struck to five and did not give base on balls.