Baseball: Stealing Home Plate

[Freddy_the_Pig]

@RickJay

Now, in fairness, it’s not entirely true to say they used to be more common. They were more common in Cobb’s time. In Robinson’s time, they were in fact extremely uncommon, unless it was Robinson himself.

Rod Carew was also known for stealing home. He achieved it seven times during the 1969 season, and I believe all seven were straight steals.

It’s true that Carew was as exceptional as Robinson, and straight steals of home have never been “common” at any time since the Dead Ball Era. But I believe they were more common during the 1960’s than today, when they are virtually unknown. I don’t have any stats to prove it, partly because of the difficulty of disentangling straight steals from delayed double steals and squeezes.

As Jim Kaat says with respect to Carew,

Years ago, even with a man on third, pitchers were encouraged to wind up because coaches felt you were giving up a lot of your stuff when you went to the set position. I remember the year Rod stole home seven times. Pitchers just continued to wind up with him at third. We would all sit on the bench and say, `Why don’t they come to a set position. That would stop it.’

Eventually, partly because of Carew, they figured that out:

It’s very rare to see a pitcher go into a windup now with a man at third.

[RealityChuck]

@EJsGirl

Cobb was a very dirty player. He would slide in, spikes up, but with his feet around the level of the other player’s waist or knees. When Tommy Lee Jones played him in the movie Cobb, he broke his own leg trying to duplicate one of Cobb’s slides.

Uh, no on both counts. Cobb slid hard, but didn’t try to deliberately hurt players any more than anyone else. His reputation was based on one incident with Home Run Baker where he did draw blood, but Baker was not seriously injured (he didn’t miss an inning of play). Cobb wouldn’t go in spikes high simply because it meant it was more likely he was tagged out.

And Jones broke his leg before shooting began on Cobb. He played the role in the case, but the script only called for one short flashback that actually showed him playing baseball, so it was only a minor hindrance.