In one of the strangest plays in international baseball history, Queenslander and long-time Australian Baseball League pitcher Justin Erasmus helped pull off a hidden ball trick to keep his native South Africa tied with Nicaragua in the first game of 2026 World Baseball Classic qualifiers.
Erasmus, who was born in Johannesburg, but grew up in Brisbane, pitched for ten seasons in the ABL, and has represented both South Africa and Australia on the world stage, was in a sticky situation at the Taipei Dome.
Entering the bottom of the 7th inning, South Africa held a precious 1-0 lead, but with one out, Freddy Zamora hit a ground ball up the middle that bounced into the outfield, allowing Emmanuel Trujillo to score from second and tie the ballgame.
To make matters worse, Erasmus started the next at-bat with a wild pitch, enabling Zamora to advance to second. With the go-ahead run now in scoring position, the Bonteboks needed to get things back under control in a hurry.
On the next pitch, Erasmus got pinch-hitter Benjamin Alegria to sky the ball into right field. Brandon Bouillon made the catch for the second out, Zamora prepared to advance to third base, and from here, the great ruse began. As Zamora arrived at his destination, third baseman Anthony Phillips fielded Bouillon’s throw.
With Erasmus already wide of third base for defensive purposes, he chose to walk to Phillips, who appeared to hand over the ball. All seemed normal as the two resumed their posts, but as asErasmus stretched and adjusted his cap on the mound, Zamora thought the ball was dead and stepped off third base.
At that precise moment, Phillips, who had the ball all along, pounced to make the tag on Zamora. It was a perfect deception—so perfect, in fact, that the umpires initially believed Erasmus had balked, awarding Zamora home plate and Nicaragua the lead.
However, after reviewing the play, they realised Erasmus had not yet fully climbed the mound, meaning Phillips’s tag was legal. The umps promptly overturned the call, making it an inning-ending double play, and the sequence immediately became the talk of the baseball world.
After that, Erasmus would pitch one more inning before ceding the mound to Dean Jacobs. Nicaragua would eventually prevail when backup catcher Ronald Rivera hit a walkoff single to right field.
However, Erasmus and Phillips’s expert communication and deception kept South Africa alive, forcing Los Azules y Blancos to keep battling into extra innings, and with this shining example of the arcane weirdness only baseball can provide, the two men are now indelibly etched into World Baseball Classic lore.
Connor Bunnellhttps://www.theroar.com.au/2025/02/23/brisbanes-justin-erasmus-pulls-hidden-ball-trick-in-world-baseball-classic/Brisbane’s Justin Erasmus pulls hidden ball trick in World Baseball Classic
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