The first time Ivan Rodriguez threw the baseball to second base for a member of the Texas Rangers organization, it traveled at 93 mph. The first time he threw it to the base in a major league game, it reached the base before poor, unsuspecting baserunner Joey Cora even started his slide.
A legend was quickly born.
Certainly, when his bronze Hall of Fame plaque is unveiled this summer, Rodriguez's exploits at throwing out baserunners will be mentioned.
But his complete domination of the game may be measured more by what guys didn't do than what they tried. He was to baserunners running the bases what Deion Sanders was to wide receivers running routes: He shut it down.
"There was no small ball with him," said Hall of Fame manager Tony La Russa, who managed the game's preeminent base stealer, Hall of Famer Rickey Henderson, for the first four years of Rodriguez's career. "He impacted it in so many ways. You didn't get secondary leads because he could throw behind you and get you. So, you it made it easier to turn double plays and harder to go first to third on a single. You didn't automatically break for second on a ball in the dirt, because he was so quick and so good at blocking balls. He could save you more than a run a game with what he did back there. You just became a station-to-station team."
La Russa's A's tested Rodriguez early. His A's were the second team to face Rodriguez in the majors. The A's were successful four times in five attempts in 1991. Over the next four years, in 37 games, they went just 14 for 34 (41 percent). After June, 1995, Rickey Henderson didn't try to steal another base against Rodriguez ... for eight years. By then, he was in his 40s, playing his last year in baseball and wanted to give it one last try for old-times sake.
Five years after La Russa left for the National League, Mike Scioscia took over the Angels and transformed them into a much more aggressive team. He, too, learned his lesson against Rodriguez. Scioscia, of course, had a bit of experience with Rodriguez, having gone to camp with the Rangers in 1993. He watched Rodriguez throw up close and personal for a spring.
"There is no doubt he would suppress the running game," said Scioscia, who spent 13 years in the majors as a catcher. "And he did it in so many different ways. There are guys you would push the envelope on, but with him, when you were trying to create, those opportunities were few and far between. He did things behind the plate, I could only dream about."
Scioscia's teams went just six for 12 against Rodriguez between the time he took over and when Rodriguez left for Florida.
Mike Hargrove essentially had Kenny Lofton and Roberto Alomar simply put the brakes on. Among the 22 players who attempted at least 300 steals during the 1990s, Alomar ranked second in efficiency at 81 percent. He was 11 for 23 (47.8 percent) against Rodriguez.
"First, he took such pride in his work behind the plate," Bobby Valentine, Rodriguez's first major league manager, said on MLB Radio Network last week. "Nothing got by him. And when guys got on base, he made it a personal challenge to stop the running. Early on, guys knew he was young, knew he was breaking in and they challenged him. He was cocky. He challenged the great ones."
He won so often that the great ones simply stopped running.
The legend may have been born in his teens, but it was forged as a young Ranger.
After a while, he didn't need to shut the running game down with his arm. He shut it down with his reputation.
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