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From: stevev@tekchips.UUCP (Steve Vegdahl)
Newsgroups: net.sport.baseball
Subject: Re: The 8th way to reach first (potato)
Message-ID: <48@tekchips.UUCP>
Date: Thu, 6-Jun-85 14:35:21 EDT
Article-I.D.: tekchips.48
Posted: Thu Jun  6 14:35:21 1985
Date-Received: Sat, 8-Jun-85 02:45:51 EDT
References: <33400010@ISM780.UUCP>
Organization: Tektronix, Beaverton OR
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>                 I heard this happened in a college game. The
>          catcher had a potato stuffed behind his chest protector.
>          A runner was on first and the catcher caught the pitch
>          and threw the potato towards first ala a pick-off throw.
>          He deliberately threw it over the head of the first
>          baseman and the potato went bouncing into right field,
>          the runner dashed for second and was thrown out by the
>          real ball. There was apparently no rule against this
>          trickery and the runner was out. I, for one, love these
>          kind of plays.

As I recall, Sports Illustrated printed this (or a similar) story
in their sports anecdote section several years ago.  As I recall, even
though the catcher protested that "there is no rule in the book against
throwing a potato", umpire disallowed the trick play, ruling that
the catcher was making a travesty of the game, presumably exercising an
umpire's right to use his judgement in cases not covered by the rule book.
(My guess is that there is nothing in the rule book that explicitly ALLOWS
the throwing of potatoes, either.)