Top 106 Baseball Players: #75 - Tim Raines

Tim Raines

Tim Raines was one of the best basestealers in history, but spending the majority of his career in Montreal has caused him to be somewhat overlooked by many baseball fans as one of the greats.

Raines played in a few games for the Expos in 1979 and 1980, but he became a full-time Major Leaguer in 1981, which was a strike-shortened season, and in his first season he led all players with 71 stolen bases, a record for a rookie, which also included 27 successful attempts in a row to begin his career, also a record.

His performance dropped a bit the following year, but still managed to lead the NL in steals. After the season, he entered into drug rehab to over come cocaine addiction, and it was revealed that he had been using the drug constantly, so much so that he kept some in his hip pocket when he was playing so he could use it between innings, and he started sliding headfirst to avoid it falling out on the basepaths.

When he returned clean in 1983, he became the best position player in baseball, leading the league in runs scored with 133 and the NL with 90 stolen bases, the third season in a row he had done that. He also walked 97 times, which would be the best of his career, but still only came in 5th in the MVP voting.

Over the next 4 seasons, he led the league once each in runs scored, stolen bases, doubles, and batting average, showing his all-around prowess at the plate, and he ranked as the best player in the NL 4 times over the span from 1983 to 1987, but as I said above, playing for Montreal, which rarely made the playoffs and played in a small market, he never got the MVP recognition he deserved.

After the 1990 season, he requested a trade to a contender, and he was sent to the White Sox, where he played 5 seasons but only made one playoff appearance, and though he played well in that series, batting .444 and scoring 5 runs, the Sox lost to the Blue Jays in 6 games.

Following the 1995 season, he was traded to the Yankees, where he was finally able to accomplish his dream of a championship. His role had diminished somewhat, as he appeared in only about half of the team's games in his 3 seasons in the city, but he was able to get 2 championship rings, in 1996 and 1998, though he didn't appear in the 1998 World Series.

He signed with the Oakland A's in 1999, but midway through the season was diagnosed with lupus, and sat out a season and a half while recovering. He returned to Montreal in 2001, then was traded briefly to the Orioles so that he would have the opportunity of playing with his son, becoming the second father-son pair to play together in the Majors.

Raines was elected to the Hall of Fame in 2017, his tenth year on the ballot, just another sign of how underappreciated he was. He is #5 all-time in stolen bases, and has the best stolen base percentage of any player with at least 400 steals, and he was the best player in baseball for several years, and he definitely deserves to be part of this list of the all-time greats.