220 pound base stealer
 

Here's an odd bit of trivia I just stumbled upon. There is a player with more than 30 career SB attempts, who's success rate (SB divided by SB+CS) is higher than Lou Brock's, and within 2 percentage points of Rickey Henderson's.

Clues: He played primarily in the 1960s, and his Topps rookie card had him at 200 pounds his first year, which is pretty hefty for a guy under 6 feet tall. His playing weight is listed by Baseball Almanac at 220.

I guarantee, if people don't start looking this up, nobody will guess it.

I am going to take a wild guess on this one, because I cannot figure out how to find the answer.

Maury Wills with little Rickey (Henderson) on his back

I'm gonna throw out my guess:

Joe Morgan

Maury Wills with Henderson on his back would've been heavy enough, but Maury's SB percentage was only .738, even without the added weight.

Morgan's SB percentage was .810 but he only weighed 160.

My guy's SB percentage was .789 and he weighed 200 as a rookie (according to Topps) and 220 during his career (Baseball Almanac.)

For perspective, Puckett had .638 with a playing weight of 178 as a rookie, 210 overall.

Earl Battey was no base stealer but he only weighed 205.

Bingo!

Pretty surprising, isn't it?

SABR has a great bio of him:
https://sabr.org/bioproj/person/gates-brown/

My favorite quote:

During a road trip in the middle of the 1968 season, Brown was playing poker with a bunch of other players, including Northrup and McLain. Halfway through a hand, Northrup caught McLain cheating. Enraged, he flew across the bed and grabbed McLain by the throat. John Hiller, who was seated next to Brown, recalls Northrup screaming, “I’m gonna kill you, you bastard! I’m gonna kill you!” Red-faced and exasperated, Northrup continued to wring McLain’s neck in anger. But he was eventually pulled off from behind by Gates. A shocked Hiller remembers Brown looking Northrup dead in the eye and saying, “You’re not gonna touch him until after we win the pennant. Then he’s all yours.”

I'm glad somebody finally answered the question. It was driving me somewhat crazy, even though I hadn't posted in the thread. :D

Some guys are just smart base runners. Nobody ever accused Paul O'Neill of being a speed demon and his lifetime % is not fantastic, but in his final season at age 38, he had 22 stolen bases and only 3 caught, and a few seasons earlier he had 15 SB's and only 1 caught.

Of the very prolific base stealers, Tim Raines was the most efficient, with Willie Wilson close behind.

What self-respecting middle infielder would even consider being taken out by an overzealous slide by Gates Brown?

The correct answer sort of makes sense from the tagger’s perspective.

Ah yes, to us Tiger fans - affectionately known as “The Gator”.

LMHAO!!

Thanks Frank!

This thread reminds me of this postcard...

https://luckeycards.com/ppcunc1908fatplayer.jpg