Ever since Indians’ player-manager Lou Boudreau introduced the defensive shift against Red Sox great Ted Williams in July of 1946, sluggers have looked at that maneuver as sort of a test of manhood.
“Shift against me, will ya?” they think. “I’ll just smack the next one over the wall.”
More often than not, they wind up knocking it to the shortstop, stationed to the first-base side of second, or to the second baseman playing a short right field. Its mesmerizing quality has made the once-rare gambit a popular ploy since 2012, when teams shifted what seemed a whopping 4,576 times.