The Tragically FIP

They called him Rock because of his squat muscular build.  He is widely regarded by today’s baseball statisticians as one of the most undervalued players of all time.  Often overlooked by the baseball writers of America who act as the arbiters of the Hall of Fame.  These panjandrums, given to hyperbole and self-righteousness within their daily newspaper columns, have no time for a man who spent the better part of his career in a cultural blind-spot.

Vincent Van Gogh died having sold one painting. Upon its release, Melville’s Moby Dick received mediocre reviews from critics.  So often greatness goes unrecognized due to the vagaries of fate like timing and location. For Tim Raines it was both.

While sports are counted on for its objectivity due to its reliance on numbers, the value of the numbers themselves have changed over time.  For instance Raines was never a homerun hitter, the most recognizable aspect of the sport.   However his career on-base percentage, a statistic that has just come into vogue measuring a player’s ability to not make an out, was a staggering .385.

Out of high school, Raines was drafted to the Montreal Expos, one of only two teams located outside the continental United States.  This is the equivalent of Brazilian soccer player spending the prime of his career in Topeka, Kansas.  The coverage of young Raines’ career was constrained not only by geography but also due the region’s literal lingua franca.  His exploits were broadcast in Quebec’s French at a time when cable sports television was a hair-brained idea rather than the moneymaker it is today. 

The few times Raines would gain headlines was due to his stolen-base prowess. (Insert Clip) During his 10 YEAR peak in the NATIONAL LEAGUE, from 1981-1990, Tim Raines averaged 63 stolen bases a year. And finished with a total of 627. First amongst his NL peers. Only Vince Coleman came close with 549 Stolen bases.

Unfortunately for Rock, he played during the time of Ricky Henderson.  While Raines was the most successful base-stealer of all time, with a success rate of 84.7%, it was Ricky who stole the most, with 1,406 stolen bases in his career. For Henderson base-stealing was an art compared to Raines science.  Insatiable on the base paths Rickey would chance the arm of every catcher in the league.  Crowds flocked to see him, the best leadoff hitter in baseball, perhaps of all time.  Never short of a catchphrase or a third person self-appraisal, he was hard to ignore compared to the subdued Raines, especially while Henderson was playing for the popular Oakland A’s and Raines dithered in the purgatory of the Canadian baseball scene.

As the nineties wore on Raines began to experience what so many players had experienced before, baseball was leaving him before he had a chance to leave baseball.  The sport forfeited its grace for power.   Owners, players, and reporters alike turned a blind eye to the growing heads  and over-medicated muscles that were becoming the norm.  In order to encourage more homeruns the fences of the once pastoral outfields were hemmed inward.  Now was the time of the Barry Bonds’, Mark Maguires, Sammy Sosas.  Attendance and coverage of the sport grew to an all time high and while a renaissance was temporarily celebrated for a sport that had gone on strike years earlier, men of Raines ilk who were valued for their defense, speed, and good-eye were left to drift in its wake.

In the twilight of his career Raines aged legs atrophied due to the degenerative disease of lupus.  He lost his starting position and was relegated to the bench.  This was made bitter sweet that by the time he was able to be on a championship team, to be seen by a national American audience, he was a footnote, a co-star, a utility man who sat atop a career that dwarfed hall of famers in various statistics.

No highlight reel can fully capture Raines’ ability.  His likeness may well not be cast in bronze and hefted high in the hall of fame.  For Tim Raines his greatness echoes only in the columns of old box-scores.  His strength, his strength lay in numbers.