Today's Tidbit... Football Balks And Snapper Feints

Most people associate balks with baseball, but football twice had balks until they were outlawed each time. Football's first balks came in the 1880s when kickers set up for field goal attempts, and instead of fully kicking the ball, they sometimes dribble kicked or balked it, booting it a short distance, picking it up, and running with it.

(‘The New Football Rules,’ Sun (New York), April 10, 1887.)

Balking a field goal attempt sometimes made sense when scoring the touchdown near the sideline. Back then, field goal attempts occured from a similarly wide position (unless the team punted out.) Being unlikely to make the kick from a highly acute angle, teams took their chances and ran the ball. An 1887 rule stopped that, so balks disappeared from the gridiron for a while.

A dozen years later after centers began snapping with their hands rather than their feet, some clever little centers began balking the snap. The centers positioned themselves over the ball, placed their hands on the pea, and swiftly moved the ball back a few inches without releasing it, much like a balk in baseball. The center's actions brought the defensive linemen offside, at which point the center snapped the ball and caught the defense offside.

Such dastardly tactics were banned by Western rulemakers in 1897. (Football had Eastern and Western rulemaking bodies for a few years.)

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