Baseball

My first thought was Mays.

But now that i know the answers, it kind of makes sense.

Almost no pitchers worked from the stretch in those days. Nearly everyone used a full wind up and with a guy on third, the difference in time between full wind-up and stretch would be the difference between being out. Once pitchers started working from the stretch routinely, stealing home automatically became harder.

The Gehrig thing is really surprising, though. With Ruth, if he was on 3rd, the pitcher likely had to be really worried about Lou. Were pitchers as worried about Bill Dickey or Bob Muesel?

15 steals of home is pretty impressive.