Stealing a Base

Stealing bases is one of the toughest things to do in baseball, it takes great timing, speed and mental toughness. It all starts with the lead off, a big lead off helps, but the farther away from the base you get the better chance you have of being picked off. The distance from the catcher to second base is the furthest distance for a catcher to throw so stealing second base is the runners best bet. The runners odds of successfully stealing drop going to third base, for the catcher only has to throw 90 feet.  On average it takes about 3.5 seconds for a pitcher to deliver the ball to the catcher and for him to throw it to second base. This gives the runner less than 3.5 seconds to run about 75 feet depending on how big the lead off was. Runners must withstand a lot of force when sliding into the base moving as fast as 20 mph. Many injuries happen every year from bad slides while trying to steal a base.