A stolen bases feat in Cedar Rapids last week induced memories of a theft here

Long ago, I sadly learned rules in sports could easily be twisted into pretzels that would make a Manhattan street vendor proud.

Something happened in Cedar Rapids Wednesday to remind me of that cold reality.

Seventy pro baseball games per year are played in this city. They’re almost all forgettable and forgotten, especially the ones in April when the weather can be balky. Wednesday, the announced crowd for the Midwest League game between the Beloit Sky Carp and Cedar Rapids Kernels was 577, which means it was something less.

The few in attendance witnessed something never seen a Major League Baseball game dating to 1901. Beloit’s Emaarion Boyd stole six bases in a game without getting a hit.

“That’s crazy,” Boyd told MILB.com when informed of that. "Maybe I should have tried to steal some more."

Boyd stole second and third after reaching on a fielder’s choice, stole second and third after drawing a walk, and stole second and third after getting hit by a pitch.

What Boyd did was all fair and fine. I’d say “Godspeed” to him on his quest to become a big-leaguer, but he seems to have the speed part covered.

What he did, however, reminded me of a long-repressed memory of Labor Day weekend in 1983. I was a sportswriting rookie, covering the Cedar Rapids Reds in the Midwest League playoffs for The Gazette.

The Reds lost a Sunday night home game to the Springfield Cardinals in 12 innings in the opener of the best-of-3 series, then dropped a Monday night game at Springfield on a two-run Cardinal homer in the bottom of the ninth.

Shenanigans abounded. Playing center field and batting leadoff in the two games for Springfield was Vince Coleman, who had played a total of zero games for that team in the regular-season.

Players in the Midwest League playoffs had to be on their teams’ rosters by Aug. 15. However, Coleman was allowed to play for Springfield by league president Bill Walters because he was replacing “an injured regular.” That player was a .239 hitter who had played in less than 40 games.

Meanwhile, Coleman had just hit .354 for Macon of the South Atlantic League, and stole 145 bases in 111 games. That is not a typographic error. He would have had a lot more steals had he not broken a hand and missed a month of the season.

In the two games against Cedar Rapids, Coleman hit just one ball out of the infield in 12 plate appearances. He scratched his way on base via infield hits, walks, fielder’s choices and errors. He stole six bases and scored five runs. Which was kind of big in two games decided by one run each.

“It shows me, you can probably pull anything in this league,” Cedar Rapids Manager Bruce Kimm said afterward. “They pulled a fast one and got away with it. To me, Walters didn’t do his job.”

Coleman was in the St. Louis Cardinals’ starting lineup just two years later. He stole 110 bases as a rookie, then 107 and 109 the next two seasons on the way to 752 in his major league career.

As an impressionable lad starting out in the sports scribe biz, I was dismayed a rule could get mangled to give a team such a big edge. That was mainly because I wanted the series to continue so I could keep covering ballgames instead of returning to the office to work on the night desk, taking phone calls to type in results of 22-team high school cross country meets.

Walters’ ill-conceived decision turned out to be a valuable teaching tool, though. For one thing, never assume people in positions of authority will make correct choices or are even qualified to hold their jobs.

As importantly — and this lesson didn’t come until two years later — I learned to be careful. Before Game 4 of the 1985 National League Championship Series, Coleman slipped on the wet Busch Stadium artificial turf as the grounds crew was unrolling the tarp on the field. The tarp rolled over his foot and he couldn’t play in the rest of the NLCS.

Which brings me to a third realization that came this weekend. If you’re writing a sports column, try having an actual idea. I vow to apply that next time, if there is one.

In the meantime, be careful. Those tarps can mess you up.

Comments: (319) 398-8440; mike.hlas@thegazette.com