Number Six

And the Pitcher Steals Another One!!

In the six year history of the 5Y League, a pitcher has stolen base only three times. Each time it was done during a season that used EI. Players of Statis-Pro and SOM can probably guess why it was never done in the seasons that used those games (I & IV for SP, V for SOM). Most pitchers were rated "E," in SP, which meant they ran as slow as me, while maybe a few were "D," which wasn't much better. If I recall correctly, SOM also used letter grades, with A or AA being best and either D or E being worst, and that's where most of the pitchers fell. Now who's gonna run their pitcher with ratings like that?

In EI, most of the pitchers are rated SLO, which gives them a horrible chance of stealing anything. In EI, if you are a SLO runner and you have larceny in your heart to steal second against a righty, you need to roll between 1-1-1 and 1-6-6; to steal third, you need to roll between 1-1-1 and 1-5-6. A thousand years ago, me and The Veet played a contest where he sent speedster Roy Campanella to steal second, and he got a lucky roll and Campy had his SB. Strictly speaking, I would never attempt a steal using a runner rated SLO, but The Veet was in an adventurous mood evidently and got away with one. Bottom line, I don't attempt stolen bases with pitchers. I'm not about to dig into any of my other seasons, at least not yet, in order to find other instances of stolen bases by the guy on the hill. Or at least I didn't plan to until I looked at my shelf next to the computer and found an old notebook from the only APBA project I ever did- a '79 draft league, eight teams, fifty games per team. A quick perusal of the final stats shows no pitcher had a stolen base. That particular league did not track caught stealing, so there you go (By the way, the commissioner has considered using APBA for one 5Y season, but hasn't decided quite yet).

So when just the other day, Lecheros starting pitcher Carl Scheib stole third(!) as the front end of a double steal on the road v. Sid Hudson of the Red Kegs, he raised a few eyebrows. He was the first pitcher to ever steal third, and the third pitcher in 5Y League history to swipe a bag. The last pitcher to turn the trick was Livan Hernandez, who stole second off visiting Dicer pitcher Kevin Tapani in game 128 of season three of 5Y baseball action. The first pitcher to steal a base was Carlos Perez of Sabaku, who did it in game 102 of season two against the Tramplers. In his case, he was the second half of a double steal, with Barry Larkin ripping off third like a Hall of Fame master theif. Perez's SB is easy to explain, but what about Hernandez and Scheib? How did they do it?

Let's be honest here...Season three of the 5Y League was a long freaking time ago, and the scoresheet only shows the stolen base. Hernandez was rated SLO/AR for that season, so you can bet your bottom dollar I didn't send the guy. What probably came into play here is the same thing that happened to Scheib- the old Rare Events deck.

In EI, first rolls from 2-3-6 through 2-5-6 signal referring to the Rare Events Chart. Funny thing is, EI doesn't provide you with one. You have to either make one up yourself, or simply disregard the roll, which is exactly what The Veet does. In a game a few years back at my place, I rolled something in the rare event range, and The Veet just said, "Yup...Pretty rare," which his way of saying he doesn't use the chart when he plays. It's an amazing thing for him to say this, because he came up with the system I use to this day. He created a deck of rare event cards with some having a heading of "Even" and some titled "Odd." When you roll in the rare event range, the final die number determines how many cards to flip over, and whether to read the side of the card that is even or odd. Some cards had both sides with the word "Even" and some had the word "Odd" on both sides, so let's say the last die was a 3. You'd flip over three cards, and look to see if the third card had the word "Odd" on it. If it didn't, you disregarded the roll. If it did, you followed what the card said. Sometimes, the card described a situation that wasn't in play at the moment (two out, runner on third, etc.), and if the situation didn't exist, the roll was disregarded. In Scheib's case, he reached second base after doubling off Red Kegs starter Sid Hudson to start the fifth inning. Phil Rizzuto walked, brining up Danny Murtaugh. The rare event roll came up, and read "lead runner attempts steal except SLO runner on third." The next roll was 1-1-2, and Scheib had swiped it! Livan's stolen base is a real mystery, as the scoresheet really doesn't explain what the fajitas happened...With no out, Marquis Grissom singled up the middle. Hernandez reached on a sac-FC, putting runners on first and second with no out. Damian Jackson struck out, then Mark Kotsay singled to left to chase Tapani. There's a star next to Kotsay's single, which means a rare event was involved somehow, I just can't figure out what it was...Oh well, life's too short, right?

I do have three candidates for "Honorable Mention." In season II, the aforementioned Livan Hernandez was caught stealing in game 30 in the third inning at home vs the Choninos. Season III saw two pitchers caught stealing: In Division One, Dicer starter Steve Parris singled to lead off the second on the road against the Toros in game 78. Chris Holt uncorked a wild pitch moving Parris to second. He tried to steal third, and was thrown out from me to you by catcher Todd Hundley. Over in Division Two, Elmer Dessens of the Atlantics led off the bottom of the fifth against the Hootin' Owls Jason Bere with his second walk of the afternoon during game 97. His slide into second was as short as could be, and yet he still tried to call time. Hilarious...Where have I seen that before?