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Stealing home: a lost art in major league baseball: swiping a run was once a common offensive tool that created excitement for fans, but today it is rarity

Baseball Digest, Sept, 2004 by George Vass

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"LaPorte again tossed the ball into the air and did it twice more. With the fourth toss, at that instant, Cobb made a break for the plate. I never in my life saw a man spring into action so fast. Bear in mind that LaPorte was about 55 feet from the plate. Cobb was at least 83.

"There was yelling and confusion. LaPorte didn't see Cobb, didn't realize what was happening. By the time LaPorte awoke and threw home, Cobb had slid across the plate, had scored, and was standing up, brushing off his uniform."

In this steal of home, the element of surprise proved the key as it often does. That's especially true with base runners not blessed with great speed like that of Cobb, who once was timed at 10 seconds for 100 yards in baseball equipment.

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Henderson, a speed demon himself, pointed this out in noting Carew's success.

"Rod wasn't considered the biggest threat around, so every time he stole home it was a surprise," said Henderson. "Wayne Gross, another of my old teammates, stole home three times in his career, and Wayne Gross was the slowest guy in the world. His over-all career total was 24. Of course, Wayne had some help. He'd scoot home on the back end of a double steal or with the pitcher in the windup. It helps to have the surprise factor."

Like Gross, first baseman Vic Power was no base-running dynamo during his career, with just 34 stolen bases in 12 seasons (1954-1965), yet is among only 11 players to steal home twice in a game. Notables on the list are Honus Wagner, Joe Jackson and Eddie Collins. (Never done by Cobb, Carey, Robinson, Carew, Reiser or Henderson,)

While splitting the 1958 season between Cleveland and Kansas City (A's). Power stole only three bases. But he stole home twice in a 10-inning game on August 14, to become the first to accomplish the feat in either league in 31 years, and nobody has matched him since.

There has been almost as long a drought in a theft of home by a pitcher. It seems the last one to do so was Curt Simmons of the Cardinals, who caught the Philadelphia Phillies napping on September 1, 1963.

While it's evident from most of the foregoing that one of the game's most dramatic plays is no longer in fashion, or apparently even a viable option, the steal of home has produced memorable moments in the game's history.

It can be said to have decided at least one pennant race, even if Reiser's heroics couldn't quite put the Dodgers across in 1946.

A steal by Chicago Cubs outfielder Danny Taylor at Wrigley Field in late September of 1930 was fatal to the Giants.

The Cardinals, Cubs and Giants were going neck and neck down to the wire during a campaign highlighting sluggers, among them Hack Wilson (Cubs), Mel Ott (Giants) and Chick Hafey (Cardinals). Wilson hit 56 home runs and drove in 191 runs, while all eight men in the St. Louis lineup batted over .300, and the team average was .314 while New York's was .319. The Cubs hit a sluggish .309,

Base running, however, decided the Giants' fate. The memorable play of the late-season series between the Giants and Cubs came in the ninth inning of a 1-1 tie. Taylor was on third base. Giants manager John McGraw brought in reliever Joe Heving, who took five warm-up pitches on the mound.

Stealing home: a lost art in major league baseball: swiping a run was once a common offensive tool that created excitement for fans, but today it is rarity

Baseball Digest, Sept, 2004 by George Vass

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