Deadspin: He Could Always Steal

Kenny Lofton’s remarkable baseball career started in earnest just days after the basketball team returned from Kansas City. “After the Final Four,” he says, “I was missing baseball a little bit.” The itch developed the summer before, when his teammates staged a series of coaches-versus-player softball games. Lofton patrolled center field, insisting that his right and left fielders play shallow because he could cover the outfield turf from foul pole to foul pole. “He caught pretty much every ball and he was throwing coaches out at third and home plate,” Mason says. “This guy was so serious.”