The fast and furious Lugo

A quick note while I start working on my taxes next year, so as not to get on the bad side of any moral arbiters out there...

--Julio Lugo has nine stolen bases in 30 games so far this season, and is on a pace to steal 48 bases for the normally chained-to-the-bag Sox. The Red Sox single season high is 54 stolen bags by current Boston minor league instructor Tommy Harper in 1973. It's proof that the old adage "speed never goes into a slump" still holds true after all this time, and it's really added a different dimension to the top of Boston's lineup. Now if Lugo can manage to start getting on base more than 30 percent of the time, then the Boston offense should be cooking with kerosene.

BTW, don't you wish they still had cool nicknames for ballplayers like they did for nearly everyone in the early 20th century. Harry "The Hat" Hooper has a pretty cool ring to it...kind of like Eric "The Wisconsin Hammer" Hinske. OK, so maybe that wasn't so good. Perhaps the readers out there can come up with something better. The best suggestion for a Sox nickname will get a prize to be named later. You can email them to me at haggerty.joe@gmail.com

And finally, the top ten single season stolen base leaders courtesy of the good peeps at www.baseball-reference.com


1.
Tommy Harper 54
1973
2.
Tris Speaker 52
1912
3.
Tris Speaker 46
1913
4.
Otis Nixon 42
1994

Tris Speaker 42
1914
6.
Harry Hooper 40
1910

Billy Werber 40
1934
8.
Harry Hooper 38
1911
9.
Harry Lord 36
1909
10.
Patsy Dougherty 35
1903

Tris Speaker 35
1909

Tris Speaker 35
1910

More later...