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July 30, 2004

Least Competent Criminals

The Least Efficient Base-Stealing Teams Ever

by Jim Baker

Last week, inspired by the well-timed thievery of the 2004 Mets, we discussed the teams with the best stolen base percentages in recorded history. (By the way, since then, the Mets have stolen eight more times without getting caught and now have the second-best percentage of all-time.) Naturally, this led to a clamoring for a look at the teams with the worst luck at taking what does not rightfully belong to them.

There's a syndicated feature called "News of the Weird" that highlights bungled burglaries in a subsection called "Least Competent Criminals." These are the guys that get stuck in chimneys or lock their keys in the getaway car. Consider the following teams to be the baseball equivalents of that crowd.

The list is dominated by teams from the early '20s. There's a good reason for this: caught stealing records are sparse before that. It is entirely possible, and no doubt likely, that some run-happy team in the Deadball Era met with even more calamitous ends than some of these teams. Perhaps painstaking research will one day reveal as much. For now, this is what we have.

1. 1923 Boston Braves (41.61%)
   57 SB, 80 CS
   Won-Loss: 54-100, 7th place
   Ring leader: Gus Felix, 8 for 21
   Henchman: Billy Southworth, 14 for 30
   Accomplices: Bob Smith, 4 for 13, Ray Powell, 1 for 7
   Avoided Prosecution: Tony Boeckel, 11 for 19

   This mark was achieved (perhaps the wrong verb in this case) in an environment where the league success rate was just 56 percent. Two other National League teams were less than 50 percent that year. As we shall see further on, that is completely unheard of today. Southworth went on to have a fine managerial career. While playing, however, he was a bit too adventurous on the bases. For the portion of his career that caught stealing were kept, he was 72 for 157, or 46 percent. I thought it would be interesting to see how his teams did in this regard, but, unfortunately, they went back to not counting CS by the time his skippering days got underway. Smith was a 28-year old rookie shortstop who switched to pitching two years later. It kept him in the big leagues until he was 42.

2. 1921 Chicago Cubs (41.92%)
   70 SB, 97 CS
   Won-Loss: 64-89, 7th place
   Ring leader: Zeb Terry, 1 for 14
   Henchman: Charlie Hollocher, 5 for 21
   Accomplices: Turner Barber, 5 for 14, Ray Grimes, 5 for 13
   Avoided Prosecution: George Maisel, 17 for 24
   

   You've got to love a team that does something so poorly yet keeps on beating its head against a wall: 167 stolen base attempts in the face of such overwhelming failure is pretty amazing. The next year they tried even more times (97 for 205) and were a little more successful. In 1923, they upped the ante to 324 attempts and were only caught 143 times, but in 1924 they were back down under 50 percent, this time in 296 tries. Zeb Terry followed up this gig with a 2 for 13 showing. He was clearly trying to rekindle the glory of his 12 for 28 showing in 1920. Emboldened by his 24 percent success rate, Hollocher attempted 48 steals the following year. On the positive side, he raised his get-there rate up to 36 percent. This was to be Maisel's most active year in the majors. He barely totaled 100 plate appearances in three other seasons. In 1921, he had 426 plate appearances and one of the emptiest .300 batting averages you're likely to see: .310/.334/.338.

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