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JUPITER, Fla. — It’s been several years since he pulled off the baserunning feat that piqued the curiosity of Ichiro Suzuki, inspired copycats throughout the game and now has drawn Major League Baseball’s scrutiny, so Nolan Gorman can finally, like a magician demystifying an old trick, admit something.

He had no idea it was possible until he did it.

“I’m not going to lie,” the Cardinals infielder said at his locker this spring. “The first time I ever heard a first base coach say, ‘Hey, run through the bag,’ was that play.”

That play avoided a force-out, generated a run, disrupted a routine play and prompted compliments for its “heads-up” savvy from opposing managers and baseball intelligentsia, like Suzuki. It also has prompted a rule, new for 2025, that legislates against ingenuity mostly for the sake of technology — unless teams can devise another way around it.

One Cardinal attempted an idea in a game this spring.

“Every run matters,” Ivan Herrera said. “So I tried.”

But before going there with Herrera at second base in a spring game, it’s important to retrace the steps Gorman took to bring the game here, and that begins when coach Stubby Clapp leaned in with instructions at first base.

In the first game of a doubleheader on June 14, 2022, more famous for Miles Mikolas coming one out away from a no-hitter against Pittsburgh, Gorman took a fourth-inning walk that loaded the bases with two outs. Clapp told him to sprint through second base on a ground ball — don’t slide, just dash. Gorman immediately understood the tactic. If he could beat any force play at second by going full speed, then the Cardinals had a chance, albeit slim, to score the run from third, cause a rundown and see if chaos ensued.

Sure enough, Paul Goldschmidt chopped a grounder to shortstop, and because he didn’t slide, Gorman beat the shortstop's flip to second base and continued right past the bag. Yadier Molina scored. Rundowns commenced.

“I was moving on his swing, and everything worked out completely perfectly to make that happen,” Gorman said. “Everything has to line up. It’s a good play. If I beat that throw at second base, we’re stealing a run, and then maybe we’re able to add on. But you steal a freaking run.”

Pirates manager Derek Shelton called it “one of the most heads-up baseball plays you’ll ever see.”

Other teams took note.

So too has MLB.

And the game might not see it again.

One of the rule changes for the upcoming regular season attempts to ban the run-through at second base to help clarify replay reviews on plays where that happens. Per MLB’s official language, an “advancing runner (who) makes no bona fide attempt to hold the base or to advance to the next base” will be ruled “safe, but subsequently out for abandonment.” The run scoring from third with two outs will depend on the “time that the runner passed” the back edge of base.

In the wake of Gorman’s successful run, several players sprinted through second base and ended up strides closer to left field. This new rule is set to address that.

While the potential for injury brought attention to this play, a pressing concern for MLB was how teams could benefit from this play via replay.

If a team challenged that the runner from third scored before the out, then unwinding the play became difficult. The offense could end up with a run by replay and a runner placed at second base — even though that runner finished the play speeding toward left field.

“I’ve seen a lot of them were they’re running straight through,” Gorman said.

Just as the strategy of running through second in specific situations was discussed in past spring camps, coaches are exploring MLB’s new rule and its application in conversations this spring — always as instructions to know and sometimes as a riddle to solve, an edge to find.

If the steps past the base trigger a violation, then brainstorming ways to still pull off the Gorman trick involve sharp, hard turns at the base, like a wide receiver’s route in football. A suggestion offered several Cardinals coaches was running to the base, crossing it and then sliding to avoid those steps. Then the runner pops up and heads to third. In theory, that could work better than in practice at full speed, and it’s likely to work once before MLB clamps down on it, too.

Asked if he had any suggestions, Gorman described how a hard turn into the shortstop’s glove would spoil the play too. And then he smiled.

“If you publish it, maybe other teams are going to take it from us,” he said.

Herrera’s turn

In an exhibition game this spring, Herrera stood at first base with two outs and a runner at third. That situation and a ground ball gave the young catcher a chance to try something — a run-through that was more of a run-to.

Instead of sliding, he raced to the base and then made a tight left.

“They say you can’t run through any more, and I’m trying to practice it,” Herrera said Sunday. “I tried to take a sharp turn so if I can get there before a flip to second then that run scores. I felt fine. We’re trying to get that run scored — and also force another play. If I get in that rundown maybe they miss the throw and that’s another run.

“Details,” he added. “Details matter.”

What gave manager Oliver Marmol a pause this past week when asked about plotting a new way to pull off the run-through was the risk of injury with sharp turns, he said.

That makes the scheme, because it’s so rare, less appealing.

Rewinding to the play that brought attention to all of this, Gorman recalled how Molina shouted at him to go back to second as the Pirates tried to figure out what happened. Pittsburgh executed the rundown for the final out at the plate, but Gorman said there was a moment when it appeared they would all have been safe and the inning kept going.

Jumping on bandwagon

That possibility invited other teams to try in the months that followed Gorman’s run, and labeled it “a growing trend” and that the Cardinals were “in large part responsible.”

The teams that attempted it included the Cubs, Marlins, Rays and Dodgers, where former Cardinal Jason Heyward took the chance to do it. The Yankees tried it often in 2023 with varying success and several runners headed out to left. But just the threat of it once confounded Boston to keep an inning alive ahead of a grand slam from Aaron Judge.

Cardinals rivals the Brewers also attempted the run-through to snag the run, and then-manager Craig Counsell told : “That’s why it’s hard to have secrets — because it gets picked up.”

Marlins speedster Jon Berti tried it with the bases loaded and ground ball to second, and he just ended up striding toward left field.

Gorman crosses paths with his play every so often on social media, and as he described it again this spring, he considered through the lens of the new rule.

“I think maybe just figuring out a way to round the bag,” Gorman said. “You’re going to have to try and make an effort toward third base. I think if you go back and look at mine, you can see I’m kind of making a left turn after I hit the bag. Umpire’s discretion would take over in that situation. I feel like I did turn.”

He did. A replay check reveals that.

That means the play that popularized the move, spurred other teams to try it more often and led to MLB limiting its effectiveness, also is the trick that may be still possible to pull off.

Presto.