Delino DeShields had the dopest Nike Hi-Top cleats. The way his Road Montreal Expos jersey seemed to pop in color made everyone pay attention. Batting gloves and shoes a royal blue blur as he pumped his way through the bases.
Delino, nicknamed "Bop", is a former second baseman and current first base coach for the Cincinnati Reds. Delino played for 5 teams between 1990 and 2002. The most important stat of his is that he was a 9-time top 10 finisher among NL base stealers from 1990-1998.
There has been much written about the decline of base stealing in baseball, and I’m not going to get into it too much here. One thing I can say is that I miss this particular play in baseball in what it meant for the suspense, strategy and enjoyment of the viewer for the game.
I miss how sometimes when a runner got on base, the whole stadium knew that he was going to try to take a bag. I miss seeing a pitcher sweat a little more when they walked a batter knowing that it’s likely going to count for two bases instead of one. Most of all, I miss watching the duel between base-runners and pitchers. Guys who might not be the biggest or tallest, but guys who had grit, guile, and a mind for knowing exactly when to strike.
The baseball game has turned into launch angles, BABIP and all things analytics. I am certainly not advocating that we don’t use these stats, in fact, I feel advanced stats make the game better. What I am saying is that (much like basketball) the largest scoring plays are valued so much more over the others, and that is why the game is debated at frequency over why things have changed so drastically.
In life, we are seeing much of the same thing. In baseball, we have seen a successful change of the game, one where the steal is increasingly irrelevant. It seems as if the opposite is happening in politics and elsewhere. We use news networks and the internet to have the most information at our fingertips that we’ve ever had, just like advanced stats have changed baseball. A reality whereas anyone inclined is trying to gain an advantage by disenfranchising the other. An ironic opposite is happening.
We are robbing each other every day. We must “Stop The Steal”. Life isn’t “Moneyball”.
This isn’t about games between left and right, or elections. This is about making sure we take care of each other. Let’s advocate to bring the steal back to baseball, while backing out of “taking the bags” from our fellow man. This pandemic has been the worst. The times that we live in could be argued to be some of the worst (or best I guess depending on the info you consume) of American history.
I look at this baseball card and I see someone determined to make a mark in the game. Using the wrong information to create your own game is dangerous. Let’s scrutinize every pitch, every sign we see, just like a base stealer with the game in his hands.
At some point, we have to put our sign up to the runners, just like our coaches used to.