Monday, May 20, 2019

Sure Could Have Fooled Me: Babe Ruth!

The Bambino stole home more times than Tim Raines, Ricky Henderson and Lou Brock combined! 10-9.

Amazing, eh?

The Babe's 10 ties him with Rabbit Maranville, Jimmy Johnson, Paul Molitor, Buck Herzog, Bill Werber and Ross Youngs for 32nd overall in that stat.

The all-time leader is Ty Cobb with 54. Most impressively, he swiped the dish eight times alone in 1912. Ty retired after 1928, and was still stealing bases even at 40. . Max Carey is a distant second with 33 thefts of home. Lou Brock somehow never did.

But it should be noted, Ruth wasn't very good in swiping bases. Sure, he racked up an impressive total for a slugger, 123. However, his stolen base percentage was low, many of those seasons. The Bambino even had seven seasons where he was caught more times than he actually succeeded!

I guess for me, when I think of stealing home, I think of Jackie Robinson. However, Ruth stole home just nine fewer times than Robinson. But Robinson stole 197 bases on 273 attempts. For five seasons in Babe Ruth's time caught stealing was not recorded. And yet, even there he was caught 117 times! So it's possible Ruth is below .500 in thefts.


References


Baseball Almanac, Inc. Baseball Almanac: Baseball History, Baseball Records and Baseball Research. Baseball Almanac, Inc. Web. 20 May 2019, <http://www.baseball-almanac.com>.

Sports Reference LLC. Baseball-Reference.com - Major League Statistics and Information. http://www.baseball-reference.com/. Web. 20 May. 2019.

Reavy, Kevin, and Ryan Spaeder. Incredible Baseball Stats: The Coolest, Strangest Stats And Facts In Baseball History. Sports Publishing, 2019.

Rymer, Zachary D. “Stealing Home: Or, Why Babe Ruth Is a Better Thief Than Rickey Henderson.” Bleacher Report, Bleacher Report, Inc. Turner Broadcasting System, Inc, 3 Oct. 2017, bleacherreport.com/articles/430984-stealing-home-or-why-babe-ruth-is-a-better-thief-than-rickey-henderson#slide6.

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