There’s always an opportunity to witness history when you attend a baseball game.
As a fan of the Cincinnati Reds, I love watching Billy Hamilton run and steal bases. I’m waiting for the day that Hamilton will swipe three bases in one inning. It seems like there is a pretty good chance for that to happen.
The last player to steal every base in one inning was Dee Gordon. He did it for the Los Angeles Dodgers in 2011 against the Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim. National Baseball Hall of Fame members Ty Cobb and Honus Wagner did it four times in their careers.
Pete Rose is known for being baseball’s hit king with 4,256. However in his career, Rose had 198 stolen bases. He was thrown out 149 times for a success rate of .571.
Little did I know that in 1980, I would see Rose accomplish this unique feat in Cincinnati at Riverfront Stadium against the Reds on May 11.
The Reds were trailing the eventual world champion Philadelphia Phillies 5-1 in the seventh inning with Mario Soto on the mound. Soto walked Rose.
With Bake McBride at the plate, Rose stole second. After McBride grounded out, Rose swiped third with Mike Schmidt batting.
Schmidt walked and then the scene was set for the two speedsters to pull off a double steal.
Rose was quoted about the play in a story in the Pittsburgh Post-Gazzette on May 30, 1983.
“I remember it like it was yesterday,” Rose said in the article. “I stole second, third and home in one inning once, but that time the steal of home was on a double steal.”
“The straight steal of home I tried once in my life, and I remember it like it was yesterday,” Rose continued. “We were playing the Phillies in Cincinnati and I had just hit a triple off (Steve) Carlton. Ken Griffey was the hitter and Carlton threw an outside curve ball. I beat it easy, but it caught the umpire by total surprise and he called me out.”
It’s interesting that out of the 3,562 games that Rose played in 24 years, he only tried to steal home twice and it involved the same two teams in the same stadium.
The other game Rose mentions in his quote was on Aug. 26, 1977. The Reds won 4-2. Rose had a stolen base earlier in the game, while Joe Morgan and Dan Driessen had two each.
There were two other stolen bases in the contest, which were both by catchers. Johnny Bench had one for the Reds and Tim McCarver of the Phillies had the other. Those two speed demons managed a combined 129 steals in their 38 seasons.