Stealing in a game? Name another professional sport where stealing is allowed. This chart should open some eyes as we often forget that players like Ty Cobb, Honus Wagner and Paul Molitor were highly proficient base thieves.
Raw speed and the ability to get on base are needed to appear on Baseball Almanac's chart of the top one-thousand career stolen base leaders. Note: A bold faced entry denotes that the player was active during the previous Major League season.
"Show me a guy who's afraid to look bad and I'll show you a guy you can beat every time." - Hall of Famer Lou Brock
During the 1909 season rookie Bill O'Hara was inserted as pinch runner and stole second and third base during the same inning. The very next day he was inserted as a pinch runner and stole second and third base yet again, also during the same inning.
In 1988 Rick Sutcliffe, who was pitching for the Chicago Cubs, successfully stole home making him the last National League pitcher to successfully steal home plate.
Did you know that stolen base records "officially" began (meaning records were kept) in 1898, the first recorded base stealing season?