Raines had Melvin, Bochy’s number
Bay Area managers had front-row seats to his base-stealing prowess
It took 10 years for baseball writers to elect Tim Raines to the Hall of Fame.
It would have taken the two Bay Area managers 10 seconds.
Back in the 1 980s , when Raines was a holy terror on the bases, Bruce Bochy and Bob Melvin had the worst seats in the house. They were catchers trying to throw out one of the greatest base stealers of alltime.
And one of them actually did.
Four times, in fact.
“Then that was luck,” Melvin, the A’s manager said last week, surprised upon hearing the number. “Maybe he over slid the base a few times, I don’t know.”
Raines, who will be inducted in Cooperstown this Sunday, was 10 of 14 (71.4 percent) in his career stealing against Melvin.
That means the A’s manager fared better than the rest of his major league counterparts. Raines’ career success rate (85 percent) is the best mark ever among players with at least 400 steals.
Bochy had no such luck. Raines went 8 for 8 on the bases with the future Giants manager behind the plate.
Melvin brightened upon hearing that.
“You can tell him that for me,” he joked. “Me 4, Bochy 0.”
But it was too late to share the word. News — like Raines — travels fast.
“Somebody already told me that I never threw him out,” Bochy said Tuesday, smiling wide. He later quipped: “If they had replay, I think I’d have had him three or four times.”
Bochy played 358 games behind the plate from 1978 to 1987. His catching conquests include throwing out Lou Brock, the Hall of Famer, at second base, and he has the photographic evidence to prove it. He nabbed the St. Louis Cardinals speedster on Aug. 14, 1978.
But Raines remained elusive. The Montreal Expos star once stole four bases over the span of two games against Bochy. That was in September of 1982, when Raines was putting the final touches on a 78-steal season.
As Raines enters Cooperstown, the Giants manager simply tips his sizeable cap.
“He was the Rickey Henderson of the National League,” Bochy said. “This guy just impacted the game in different ways.
“He was a switch-hitter, had some pop, good defender. He had the whole game. I’m happy for him. This is a guy that I think has been somewhat overlooked and undervalued (in terms of) what he brought to a team.”
Raines stole 808 career bases, fifth all-time behind Henderson (1,406), Brock (938), Billy Hamilton (914) and Ty Cobb (897).
He finished in the top 10 in MVP voting three times and won the 1986 batting title with a .334 average.
Raines was annually among the league’s on-base percentage leaders, which made for some unhappy catchers.
“Oh, not fun,” Melvin said. “It’s similar to Rickey Henderson, really. You’re hoping you can just get a pitch you can handle and a (pitcher) who is quick to the plate. Because if you don’t, it doesn’t matter how good a thrower you were: You weren’t going to throw him out.”
But Raines ran into the wall when it came to Hall of Fame voters. In his early days of eligibility, he once garnered as little as 22.6 percent of support from the BBWAA.
His wait ended this year when he was on the ballot for the 10th and final time. Raines sailed through this time by being named on 86 percent of the ballots.
He will be joined by Jeff Bagwell and Ivan Rodriguez at the induction ceremony.
Bochy could have ended the Raines debate a long time ago.
“Some of us had to try to throw him out,” he said. “We all knew how good he was.”