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Phillies steal home by using the oldest trick in the book

It's still early, but the Philadelphia Phillies have easily been the most surprising team in baseball. Many projected the club to be among the worst teams in the majors prior to the start of the year. Instead, they are 25-21, and sit just three games out of first place in their division.

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While the Phillies have shown they have more talent than most people expected, the club occasionally has to resort to clever tricks in order to get ahead. The team proved as much Wednesday against the Detroit Tigers, pulling off a rare steal of home.

Anyone who has played Little League will understand what happened here. With men on first and third, the Phillies called for a steal of second base. In doing so, they decided to utilize one of the oldest tricks in the baseball book.

You see, technically, the Phillies called a double steal. But whether Andres Blanco would run home was dependent on the actions of Tigers catcher James McCann. If McCann got distracted by Peter Bourjos' steal of second and threw down to the bag, Blanco would furiously charge home hoping to beat the throw.

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That's exactly what happened. McCann threw down to second hoping to nab Bourjos. In doing so, he may have forgotten about Blanco at third. Once McCann got rid of the ball, Blanco streaked home.

McCann's throw to second was off line, allowing Blanco to score pretty easily. Even if McCann produced a strong, accurate throw, it's possible Blanco still would have pulled off the steal of home. He got a great jump and seemed to catch McCann off guard.

That produced the following graphic on MLB.com's Gameday, and we can all be pretty happy about that:

(MLB.com Screenshot of Andres Blanco's steal of home against the Tigers)
(MLB.com Screenshot of Andres Blanco's steal of home against the Tigers)

It's not often you see a steal of home, and if it took some trickery to make it happen, we're OK with that. It's not like this was some cheap ploy by the Phillies. They used one of the oldest baseball tricks in the book and got the Tigers to fall for it.

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Chris Cwik is a writer for Big League Stew on Yahoo Sports. Have a tip? Email him at christophercwik@yahoo.com or follow him on Twitter! Follow @Chris_Cwik