Hall of fame inductee Raines had full ‘package’
On Sunday, Tim Raines will become the third player inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame wearing an Expos cap, joining Gary Carter (2003) and Andre Dawson (2010).
Steve Rogers played with all of them.
Rogers, who pitched for the Expos from 1973 to 1985, also played with Hall of Famer Tony Perez when the first baseman was with the Expos from 1977 to 1979.
“I had a full eight years in a row out of my 12-year career that, virtually every time I went on the field, I had three Hall of Famers on the field with me,” Rogers said during a phone interview from New York, where he works as a special assistant with the Major League Baseball Players’ Association.
“There are just not that many teams that can say they had three Hall of Famers on the field virtually every day for eight years in a row.”
Rogers was thrilled when he learned Raines would be inducted this year, wondering what took so long. Raines made it in during his 10th and final year of eligibility. Rogers said Raines was part of a dominant trio of leadoff hitters during the 1980s that included Rickey Henderson and Lou Brock, who are also in the Hall of Fame.
“I think with any leadoff hitter, it’s a package...it’s never going to be one thing,” Rogers said. “Certainly there’s got to be speed because speed dominates the game. Speed changes the way the other team plays. It’s a lost art today, but nonetheless it’s a chapter in the small-ball book.
“Raines was dangerous at the plate,” Rogers added. “You couldn’t just throw a strike to him because he’d hurt you in the gap, he’d hurt you over the fence. It was the full package.”
Rogers also admired the way Raines picked his spots when stealing bases, finishing his career with 808 and an incredible 84.7 per cent success rate.
“He didn’t just steal to steal,” Rogers said. “Any time you can steal and get in scoring position, that’s good. But the thing I remember most about him is he stole to give the team a chance to win. He stole in crucial situations, and he stole without it being close. He didn’t take third base gratuitously. He didn’t steal it with two outs. But if he thought he could steal it with one out, he was going to go for it. It always felt like it was solely about the team having the best chance to win rather than him just getting another stolen base.”
Rogers won’t be in Cooperstown, N.Y., for Sunday’s induction ceremony, but he will definitely be thinking about Raines.
“I didn’t do a thing. I didn’t help him hit, I didn’t help him steal any bases, I didn’t help him be a Hall of Famer,” Rogers said. “But it’s a source of pride having been his teammate.”