I have been relating incidents from my officiating career, trying to match the sport in which the incidents happened with the current high school season.

But, after seeing the fake fumble touchdown pass by Jared Goff and the Lions against the Bears, I decided to tell you about a couple trick plays that I saw from high school coaches.

I’ll go back to basketball stories next week.

Both of the plays came from the same high school, one in football and one in baseball. They may have been the work of the same coach, but I’m not sure.

The school was Midland Bullock Creek.

The baseball coach was Bruce Dickey, and he may also have been an assistant football coach. He was a very good coach and a real competitor.

I also umpired adult baseball games in which he played and he was a competitor there, too.

The baseball play came in a Connie Mack summer league game, and it fooled me. As a result, I ruined the play with an incorrect call.

Here is the situation: The bases were loaded for the opponent of Bullock Creek. I was the base umpire, so I was positioned on the infield grass, on the shortstop side of second base, so I had a perfect view to make the correct call (or non-call).

You need to know that the trick play was well-orchestrated and happened very quickly, which is why the play worked. I don’t remember, but I am sure there was some yelling involved that further confused the opposition.

The pitcher went to the stretch position, then very quickly stepped back off of the rubber and all in one motion faked a pickoff throw to first base. The first baseman put his glove in the dirt while faking an attempt to catch the fake throw and intentionally raising a cloud of dust to hide the fact that there was no throw. He then wheeled around and ran down the foul line toward right field, pretending to chase the non-existent wild throw. The base runners (particularly the runners on second and third, who probably weren’t really paying attention) started to advance, thinking it was a wild throw, while the pitcher — who still had the ball — calmly tossed it to an infielder, who tagged one of them out..

I guess I was like the inattentive base runners, because, when the pitcher faked the throw to first base, I threw up my hands and yelled, “Balk.”

My mistake.

I didn’t notice that the pitcher stepped backward before the fake throw, making his action legal.

Once I called the balk, that stopped any action and ruined the ruse.

Coach Dickey came out and we had a conversation. Since it was summer ball and not a league game, it was a calm discussion. Had it been a high school league game, I am sure the conversation would have been a bit heated.

Coach Dickey said, “Les, I’m sorry. I should have warned you that we were going to attempt the fake throw.”

I replied, “Bruce, I am a veteran umpire. I’ve been umpiring for years. I should not have needed an advance warning. All I can do is apologize.”

We voided the balk call, placed the runners back on their original bases, and the game went on.

Of course, I learned another lesson.

The other Bullock Creek trick play, as I said earlier, involved football.

Our officiating crew had the play explained to us in the pregame conference, and, if I remember correctly, we were even tipped off before they ran the play.

The offense lined up in normal positioning, with the quarterback under center.

At the snap, the QB turned and faked a handoff to a running back running toward the left tackle. The QB then remained motionless, facing away from the other players and hiding the ball from their view.

The other running backs and the right guard and right tackle all moved toward the left side of the line like they were lead blocking for a power run by the back, who didn’t have the ball.

As the blockers and faking back reached the line of scrimmage, they all fell into a pile, making it appear that the ball carrier had been tackled or at least had fallen down.

Meanwhile, the QB, who was still hiding the ball with his back to the line of scrimmage, just stood there. He stayed there until the pileup of players occurred, probably two to three seconds, then turned and ran around the right side of the line, which was completely vacant of defensive players.

Our crew, being warned, were ready and did not blow a whistle to stop the play.

But we heard that more than one crew got fooled and blew the whistle, thinking the faking running back had the ball and had been tackled.

Les Miller, of Hubbard Lake, has retired after 53 years officiating multiple sports around Michigan. He can be reached at theoldref@yahoo.com.