I made an offer to the kids in the writing press that if they ever needed filled in on what happened during the Reagan Administration as well as the late Carter Era, I was their guy. During those days I pretty much spent all of my time watching and reading about baseball and listening to obscure rock music.
Apparently I went to school, too, though the records of that are spotty at best. My report cards from those times look like an alphabet sampler rather than something a hard-working student would submit.
Apropos of that, Bob Ford and Rich Hofmann are the go-to guys if you want to really know what happened in the 1970s.
Anyway, there was a game played on May 11, 1980 where Pete Rose swiped second, third and home in succession. I blathered on about it like crazy last night, though I wrongly thought it was 1979.
Hey, those days were a blur.
The reason I remember Rose’s larceny (old-timey phrase) around the bases was because I actually watched it on TV. It also was shown on The Today Show the next morning as their main baseball highlight. Back then The Today Show was actually a news show with Jane Pauley and Tom Brokaw and since not every game was on TV back then (and some of us had bed times), Rose’s steals were notable.
Actually, I had never seen nor heard of a player stealing all three bases in a row since Pete Rose did it against the Reds on a day, not coincidentally, when Johnny Bench had the day off.
Do you think Pete would try that on Johnny Bench?
But I had never heard of anyone pulling the steals around the bases since Rose did it until last night when Jayson Werth pulled it. The difference, of course, was that Werth stole home on a delayed steal, which is kind of a little league play. The catcher throws the ball back to the pitcher who isn’t paying close attention and, zoom!, there he goes.
Pete stole home on the backend of a double steal. When Mike Schmidt took off for second, Rose took home… headfirst slide and all.
According to research by the Society of Baseball Research (SABR) via The Zo Zone!, the triple steals have occurred a bunch of times in the last 80 years. In fact, it happened five times between Rose and Werth did it for the Phillies.
Check it out:
- Jayson Werth, Phillies, 5/12/2009 (7th inn)
- Eric Young, Colorado, 6/30/1996 (3rd inn)
- Chris Stynes, Kansas City, 5/12/1996 (1st inn)
- Devon White, California, 9/9/1989 (6th inn)
- Paul Molitor, Milwaukee, 7/26/1987 (1st inn)
- Dusty Baker, San Francisco, 6/27/1984 (3rd inn)
- Pete Rose, Phillies, 5/11/1980 (7th inn)
- Dave Nelson, Texas, 8/30/1974 (1st inn)
- Rod Carew, Minnesota, 5/18/1969 (3rd inn)
- Don Kolloway, White Sox, 6/28/1941 (9th inn)
- Jackie Tavener, Detroit, 7/25/1928 (7th inn)
- Harvey Hendrick, St. Louis Browns, 6/12/1928 (8th inn)
Looking at the list it seems as if May 11 and/or 12 are the days for this oddity to occur. It also seems to happen every six years or so, though not once in the last 13 seasons. Hearing from Werth last night, he doubts it will happen again anytime soon. Back when the straight steal of home wasn’t as rare as it has been in the past few decades, pitchers didn’t do the slide step. The pitchers appeared to pay attention to pitching.
Werth says he used to watch videos of his grandfather Ducky Schofield play in the Majors during his 19-year career (both are World Series champs… Ducky won it in 1960 with the Pirates) and was struck by the pitching motions even with runners on base.
Werth’s uncle Dick Schofield also spent more than a decade in the big leagues (mostly with the Angels) and never stole three bases in a game, which Ducky swiped 12 in his entire career.
Step-father Dennis Werth? Just one stolen base in a four-year big-league career – the same amount of times Jayson swiped home