Quote Originally Posted by coxfan View Post

Years ago, a pitcher yelled that they were going to put a batter on with an intentional ball four when he already had a 3-2 count. Then they fooled the batter, who'd relaxed, with a called strike. ( I think this occurred in a World Series.)
As I recall, it was in the early 1970s and the A's pulled it off against Johnny Bench. The catcher (must've been Tenace) stood up indicating they'd throw ball four, but then returned to his crouch and caught strike 3 that Bench stood there and took. I seem to remember Morgan or somebody on base at the time, yelling in to Bench to be careful, but it didn't help.

I'd love to see the game sped up, but not at the expense of losing those opportunities to outthink the other team.