They Stole Home in 1927
Why Don’t They Do It Any More?
This story first appeared in ESPN’s The Diary of Myles Thomas (espn.com/1927), a real-time historical fiction adventure that ran almost every day last year; it deserved far more attention than it received. Douglas Alden was the project’s creator, Steve Wulf wrote essays and “did voices,” and I scribbled a bit, too. This was one of the most rewarding associations of my career, and I wish it could have gone on beyond the Yankees’ sweep (sshhh) of the Pirates in the World Series. There were so many remarkable seasons left for us to recreate (my vote for “next” would have been 1941), and maybe we can find a way to get back into gear for a similarly ambitious reimagining of times gone by.
Every now and then, with Doug’s kind permission, I will reprise for readers of Our Game one of my essays written expressly for The Diary of Myles Thomas. Today let’s look at a standard stratagem of the 1920s and 1930s, wrongheadedly consigned to the dustbin of baseball.
Did you know that Lou Gehrig — a lumbering slugger whose movements were so clunky that he earned the nickname Biscuit Pants — stole home 15 times?
Did you know that Babe Ruth stole home 10 times in his career?
In low-scoring periods like the deadball era of 1900–1919, or today’s pitcher-dominated times, playing for a single run rather than the big inning appears to make some sense. But given the run-scoring prowess of Murderers’ Row, such exploits are head-scratchers to today’s sabermetric set.
Working the count for a base on balls, sacrificing an out for a base, or attempting a steal — these time-honored strategies, born in the 1880s, began to wane by the 1950s. But in the 1920s and ’30s, deadball tactics still coexisted peaceably with the advent of the lively ball because, in baseball especially, traditions die hard.
The first stolen base of Gehrig’s career took place on June 4, 1925, and it was a steal of home — part of a double-steal, with catcher Wally Schang, another slowpoke, running from first base to second. Thereafter he made it something of a specialty. In 1926 he stole home twice, each time with Ruth as his partner in crime. In 1927, the year that concerns us in the present moment, he stole home three times:
- June 11, 1927 vs Cleveland in 5th: double steal with Tony Lazzeri
- June 29, 1927 vs Boston in 8th: double steal with Bob Meusel
- July 30, 1927(1) vs Cleveland in 3rd: double steal with Bob Meusel
No one stole home more often than Ty Cobb, who did it 54 times, all but four of these with the Detroit Tigers (his closest competitor and NL leader is Max Carey, with 33).
In 1927, in the wake of a betting scandal that also involved Tris Speaker, Cobb found himself, at age 40, with an unconditional release and a new ballclub, the Philadelphia Athletics. On April 26, the old man summoned up all his past glory to have a game for the ages. He collected three hits, including a double that drove in the winning run; he also walked and stole home in the seventh inning, and made a shoestring catch in shallow right that trapped the runner off first in an unassisted double play that ended the game. He stole home two other times in 1927, and one final time in 1928, at age 41.
Back in 1927, pitchers would wind up with a man on third base, figuring he was little threat to steal. This permitted Gehrig or Cobb to take a walking lead. Sometimes a wary pitcher might throw from the stretch, or use a slide step, but this was unusual.
Upon the onset of the power game in the ensuing decades, virtually no pitcher thought of holding the runner close to third.
In 1969 Rod Carew, with the encouragement of manager Billy Martin, ran wild, stealing home seven times — five of them came in the first inning, when opponents would not imagine that a man would risk running into an out. But in the years since, the art of the steal has diminished to the vanishing point, as managers started to go by “The Book.” Of course, when baseball people talk about The Book, they’re referring to the folk wisdom that has built up through trial and error, largely in the seventy-five years or so after the Knickerbockers cavorted in Hoboken. Most of the significant elements of strategy go back before the turn of the century. Even the classic “percentage play” of platooning — matching a left-hand batter against a right-hand pitcher (or vice versa) — goes back to manager Frank Bancroft in the 1880s.
Then, as now, percentage play consisted of nothing more than achieving the greatest possible gain in run scoring or run prevention while assuming the least possible risk. As the penalty for failure increases, so must the reward; otherwise the percentages are said to be working against you.
Take the case of the sacrifice bunt. When this idea first came into the minds of baseball men in the early 1880s, a time when league batting averages were in the .240s and slugging percentages in the .320s, it may have been a good idea. By 1908, when BAs had shrunk to the .230s in both leagues and SLGs to an all-time low of .304 in the American and .306 in the National, the sacrifice seemed even smarter. With every run dear and shutouts commonplace, playing for one run rather than for the big inning would have appeared to make sense.
But this idea — born of a particular time and particular conditions — became entrenched and grew, spreading itself into other times and other conditions which would not have been fertile for its invention. Managers in the 1930s or 1950s — hitting-dominated decades — sometimes instructed their fourth, fifth, or sixth batters to lay one down for the good of the team.
The stolen base also made sense in an age of low scores and plentiful errors. In the twentieth century, however, it became an overrated play, with even the best basestealers contributing few extra runs or wins to their teams. The reason for this is that the break-even point was so high, roughly two steals in three attempts.
What about stealing other bases?
Television announcers will tell you that if you want to steal third, you’d better be sure you’re going to make it. What is implicit in that remark is that your team will suffer far more for your being thrown out than it will benefit from your gaining third, because the runner on second already stands a pretty good chance of scoring. With one out or none out, sure, it would be nice to get to third and perhaps score on an out. But stealing third requires a success rate of 80–90 percent to make it worthwhile.
Now for the steal of home: Managers and players avoid the play because they presume that, as with the steal of third, the break-even point is too high to make it worthwhile. They’re wrong.
Stealing home with two out is a good play, a far better percentage play than stealing third. Because of the enormous potential gain as compared to the risk, you only need a 35 percent probability of success in order to break even. The break-even point dips below 30 percent if it’s the last of the ninth, two out, and the score is tied. The two-out steal of home is the unknown great percentage play. (This is an observation that Pete Palmer and I offered in The Hidden Game of Baseball back in 1984; we have been howling into the wind ever since.)
This 30–35 percent break-even range for stealing home with two outs similarly applies when a runner is on third and a fly ball produces the second out. If the third-base coach feels there’s a one-in-three chance of the runner arriving at the plate successfully, he should send the runner.
The same holds true for a man on second with two outs when the batter drives a single to the outfield. If the coach believes there is a one-in-three chance of the runner being safe at home, he should go for it.
Just ask Lou Gehrig or Babe Ruth.
Or Jackie Robinson.
