Misled by the 1980s

Mike Popelka

Ahh, 80's baseball; elastic-lined pants, Astroturf, bushy facial hair and cocaine. 80's baseball gave us some memorable World Series moments as well as the sweet taste of lots and lots of stolen bases. As any true baseball fan would readily admit, a well timed steal is one of the most exciting things to happen in a game. Sadly, stolen base numbers are down and home runs are up. Many of us that came of age in the 1980s believe today's station to station, slugging style of play is closer to slow pitch softball than to "real" baseball. Unfortunately statistics prove we are wrong. Although power numbers are up, steal attempts per game are higher now than in two of the five previous decades. It's hard to admit my friends, but the style of baseball we watched as kids was an aberration.

I recently partook in some actual research concerning National League (aka THE League) stolen base statistics on the Baseball Reference website. Adding steals and caught stealing numbers for each year and then dividing them by the number of total games played, I calculated a stolen base attempt per game average (SBA/G) for the decades ’51-59*, ’60-’69, ’70-79, ’80-89, ’90-99, and finally the half decade of ’00-05.*

The highest SBA/G was 1.65 in, of course, the 1980s. This should come as no surprise to us. In the 80s, Tim Raines, Rickey Henderson and Vince Coleman were jointly responsible for 1,893 steals.

Juxtapose this with the 3,502 stolen bases the entire league stole in the 50s. Baseball literature tends to glamorize the baseball of the 1950s, but in reality the slow, plodding style of play would bore most of us to tears. The 50s had a remarkably low SBA/G of only .53. This means that both teams combined for an average of only half a steal attempt in games during this decade. Is it possible for Earl Weaver to have managed every game of every team during the 50s? Apparently.

The total SBA/G for each decade is:
1951-59-- .53
1960-69-- .70
1970-79-- .96
1980-89—1.65
1990-99—1.12
2000-05-- .80

Yes folks, it’s time we come to grips with the facts. 80’s baseball was exciting, fun, and fast, but it wasn’t the norm. Baseball statistics tend to move in cycles, though, so there’s still a good chance that someday soon we’ll be able to cheer on a 100+ steals man again. Let’s just hope that we don’t have to sit through a decade without basepath action before we get there.

*There were no caught stealing stats available for 1950 on Baseball Reference, and I’m too lazy to seek out alternate sources of data for a blog post.
*I realize that Bill James probably already knows about this. I also realize that statistical analysis of stolen bases is most likely readily available elsewhere. I had fun playing with the numbers myself anyway. Math is fun!