Nan's Gambit

During the opening round of the rBBL Season 7 playoffs, the Junior Athletics had secured a 9-6 upset victory over the Boston Cubs on the Cubs' home field of Cement Gardens. With a chance to earn a trip to Big City Stadium in the penultimate series, the Athletics needed one more win, and it came on their home field of Dubois Diamond, though it did not come easily at all.

Video footage of the play: https://youtu.be/aIWZ5V4zXzs

In the bottom of the fifth inning with one out, Nan Porter stood on 1st base and Sally Dobbs on 3rd base. Holly Franklin was at the plate, facing an 0-2 count. The Athletics had scored four runs at this point. If they could plate another run, it would be worth two runs due to the home bonus, so it was critical for the Athletics to score here, especially since they anticipated an intense defensive struggle, as the Cubs and Athletics were the top-rated defenses in the Backyard and Frontyard conferences, respectively. Nan Porter spontaneously came up with a plan and ran it by Athletics head coach MelloMathTeacher via signals. Coach Mello, having faith in his player, gave her the green light. It was unlike anything they had tried all season.

The plan was for Nan Porter to attempt to steal 2nd base, sacrificing herself in the process. If Cubs catcher Susan Gore, who has among the strongest arms in the entire league, threw to 2nd base to throw her out, then that may allow enough time for Sally to sprint and steal home. If Susan didn't throw to 2nd base, then this would put two runners in scoring position instead of one.

The next pitch was a slowball to the inside; Ball 1. Nan took off from 1st base and ran to 2nd. As expected, Susan threw the ball to 2nd base to get her out. The moment the ball left Susan's hand, Sally started sprinting home from 3rd. Since the Athletics had Wendy Parsons at catcher, they knew that Cubs shortstop Alex Rodriguez (who Wendy is a clone of) would have a moderately strong throw across the diamond, but not one so strong that Sally couldn't get home in time as long as Alex took the time to tag out Nan. However, to the surprise of all the viewers, **Nan wasn't tagged out.** Alex threw straight home in an effort to keep Sally from scoring. The throw back to home bounced between home plate and the pitcher's mound. Susan didn't think the ball would reach in time, so she used her speed to retrieve the ball after the bounce and then it was a footrace back to home plate, a footrace that Sally won by the slimmest of margins. This got the Athletics an extremely valuable fifth run (and six runs in total when factoring in the home bonus), plus a fast runner in Nan Porter in scoring position. It worked out even better than the two scenarios considered above.

On the very next pitch, Holly Franklin sent a fly ball to right field, where it was dropped by Jessica Wassersas. Coach Mello was not actually aware that Nan Porter was still on base until Holly hit the ball, and waited to sprint her to 3rd base until he made this realization. Carlos Ocampo picked up the ball while Jessica was recovering, but his weak arm forced Lisa to come to the shallow outfield to make the relay. Lisa Crocket's relay to home was not in time despite her best effort, which allowed another run for the Junior Athletics to score, putting their score at +7 when factoring in the home bonus.

This turned out to be the deciding run, as the Boston Cubs scored four runs in the top of the 6th inning to make the score 7-7. Had it not been for Nan Porter's incredibly gutsy gambit and Coach Mello's approval, the series would have gone to a deciding third game. Instead, the Junior Athletics pulled off one of the season's most astounding upsets. The Junior Athletics would go on to defeat the Texas Rangers and the Seattle Mariners (nicknamed Montana Floss) to win the Backyard World Series. BBL historians point to this moment as a huge turning point in the direction the Season 7 playoffs would go.