Acid Flashback Friday: Dave Collins Steals 60 Bases

When you think of some of the fastest Blue Jays to put on the fabled uniform, you probably think of Roberto Alomar, Shannon Stewart or even Damaso Garcia. But have you ever thought of the name Dave Collins?

With perhaps the most unassuming name among the bunch, one would never expect Dave Collins to have the single season record for stolen bases by a Blue Jay, and yet he does.

For this week’s Acid Flashback Friday, we take a look back at Dave Collins 60 stolen bases season.

As you can see by the photo above and by his oddly generic name, Collins doesn’t really strike me as your prototypical base stealer. And somehow, in 1984 he swiped 60 bags and set a Blue Jays team record that has yet to be broken.

Collins was very effective as well: he was only caught 14 times and thus had a 81% stolen base success rate.

I don’t know if manager Bobby Cox just perpetually gave Dave Collins the green light, but by hitting second in the Blue Jays lineup, it gave them the ability to get a runner in scoring position with the 3/4 hitters due up.

Collins speed not only aided him in swiping bases, but taking extra bases as well. His extra bases taken percentage was 53% for the 1984 season.

The 60 stolen bases benchmark has stood for 27 years, but the closest anyone ever came to eclipsing Dave Collins record was Roberto Alomar in 1993 when he stole 53.

Thanks to @GrubersMullet for this week’s Acid Flashback Friday suggestion. If you have anything you want to see from Blue Jays yesteryear in an upcoming Acid Flashback Friday, email bluejayhunter@gmail.com