To appreciate the unique Hall of Fame brilliance of Tim Raines, ask yourself this question: Who plays baseball today the way Raines did in the 1980s? Raines was an on-base and stolen-base machine. He stole 70 or more bases six straight years in the 1980s—more times than all players put together over the past 20 seasons.
Reds outfielder Billy Hamilton has game-changing speed like Raines, but he doesn’t get on base nearly as often. He has yet to steal 60 bases. (In fairness, teams defend the stolen base far better today than they did in the 1980s, and a generation of analytics-raised executives has devalued attempts.