Ivan Rodriguez's greatest days in the big leagues were often behind the plate. He was a defensive wonder. From his rookie year as a 19-year-old in 1991 through the next 11 seasons, 871 brave runners attempted to steal a base on Pudge Rodriguez. And he threw out more than half of them.
It was astonishing to watch -- how quickly he popped up out of his stance, the blazing speed of his release, the power of his arm. And the accuracy -- no catcher since Johnny Bench put the ball on the corner of the bag as routinely as Rodriguez did. And Pudge actually threw out a higher percentage of would-be basestealers than Bench did.
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And nobody in baseball history -- not Bench, not anyone -- could pick off an adventurous runner like Rodriguez, who will be inducted into the Hall of Fame on Sunday (watch coverage of the 2017 Hall of Fame inductions beginning at 11 a.m. ET Sunday on MLB Network with a simulcast on MLB.com). He loved doing that, loved catching the ball and instantly firing it to first, even if the runner was just a step off the bag. The sheer speed of the Pudge pickoff throw was dazzling.

"If you're going to take a lead on me," he told Sports Illustrated in 1997, when he was still just 25, "I'm going to throw it. I'm not afraid."
"You make it sound personal," the writer, Johnette Howard, said.
"Yeah," he replied. "It is."
Those amazing defensive skills were there from the start -- Pudge won the Gold Glove his first full season in the Majors, 1992, and he won them for the next nine seasons. And then, in 1997, the Texas Rangers made him the highest-paid catcher ever. But even by then, nobody was certain that Rodriguez would become a really good hitter. He rarely walked, swung at everything, hit with moderate power.

On April 13, 1999, Ivan Rodriguez announced his presence as a dominant hitter.
That day at Seattle's Kingdome, Rodriguez came up in the first inning with two runners on base. He yanked an upper-deck home run off Seattle's Ken Cloude. That's three RBIs.
In the second, he came up with the bases loaded against Cloude. He smashed a line-drive single to right field to score two. That's five RBIs.

Then, in the third inning, he came up again with the bases loaded against reliever Mac Suzuki and, yep, you guessed it, he crushed a grand slam. That's nine RBIs, a Texas Rangers record. And all in the first three innings.
He actually had a decent chance that day to tie the Major League record for RBIs of 12. Pudge came up in the fifth with two runners on, but he flied out to center. He got only one more at-bat in the game; Rangers manager Johnny Oates took him out in the late innings of the 15-6 blowout win because, as he said, "That's what you're supposed to do."

"It's a long season," Pudge said. "I feel happy with the game I had, but I'm not looking for that. I'm just looking for wins."
That year, Pudge hit a career-high 35 home runs, drove in a career-high 113 RBIs and won the AL MVP Award.
Let's mention one more great game -- it was really more just a great moment -- on April 19, 2000. The Rangers were playing the two-time defending World Series champion Yankees and were down two in the ninth. Mariano Rivera, who will soon be joining Rodriguez in Cooperstown, was on the mound, and Oates sent Pudge in to pinch-hit with a man on and two outs. Rodriguez poked a game-tying homer to right, making him one of the few to break through against the great Mariano.

We can go back for a minute that that Sports Illustrated story 20 years ago. Here's a quote from Oates that has held up pretty well:
"If he stays healthy," Oates said, "I guarantee he'll be making an acceptance speech someday."