Whatever happened to the beauty and excitement of the stolen base in Major League Baseball?
There’s just a few days more than two weeks remaining in the 2018 regular season, and the MLB stolen base leader is Trea Turner of the Washington Nationals with 37. I grew up watching Lou Brock, Willie Wilson, Ricky Henderson and Vince Coleman on the major league base paths.
In a more than a disappointing year as a Kansas City Royals fan this season, one player has really been a bright spot — Whit Merrifield. Merrifield is the second-leading player in stolen bases with 35, which leads the American League. He led the American League in stolen bases in 2017 with 34.
Merrifield’s totals are far off the Royals’ record. Wilson holds the Kansas City record with 83 in 1979. Wilson is 12th all-time with 668 career stolen bases. Henderson is the all-time MLB stolen base leader with 1,406 career swipes and had 130 in 1982.
Henderson shows up as having the top single-season mark but really in 1890 Tommy McCarthy had 140 playing for the St. Louis Browns. In 1887, Hugh Nicol of the Cincinnati Red Stockings had 138 stolen bases. However prior to 1898 a stolen base was credited to a baserunner who reached an extra base on a hit from another player.
Brock had 118 in 1974 and Coleman swiped 110 and 109 bases in 1985 and 1987, respectively. Of active players in 2018, the top single-season total is 60 by Dee Gordon in 2017 when he was with Miami. Gordon is playing for Seattle this season.
Now, by no means am I a baseball fanatic who knows all the statistics for all the players for all the teams for all the years. I am a Royals fan from the beginning of the team in 1969. Also, I loved following MLB on Saturday afternoons with the NBC games of the week — having the games on the television up loud enough we could hear the call of the game in the front yard as we played our own game of baseball/softball or football.
Oh, that’s right stealing bases is part of “small ball” and that’s not baseball anymore. Sports fans have gotten to only love the home runs in baseball, dunks in basketball and long touchdown passes in football. I love a good hit-and-run, a bunt and of course the excitement and anticipation of a stolen base.
No, I’m not a baseball fan who sits and watches every game. I listen and watch when I can. I loved to hear a call by an announcer of a lead off by a baserunner, the cat-and-mouse game played between the runner and the pitcher. Then he goes...
Will he make it? Or will the catcher’s throw get there in time for the tag?
I also love watching catchers throw out runners on steal attempts, if they are the right catchers.
Of course, for me it’s all about the Royals. Buck Martinez, Darrell Porter, Jim Sunberg, John Wathan, Jamie Quirk to name a few catchers. Now, it is all-star, Golden Glover Salvador Perez behind the plate for Kansas City.
I also remember watching Johnny Bench, Carlton Fisk, Gary Carter and even Thurman Munson of the dreaded New York Yankees. Maybe it is because I was a catcher for my summer softball team that I’m drawn to that position.
I wasn’t fleet of foot so that’s not why I love base stealers. I don’t know but there’s a beauty to the stolen base attempt from the runner and the catcher perspective. I miss seeing it more.
Contact Jocelyn Sheets
at jsheets@newtondailynews.com