Brighton Heights teen achieves a true rarity at PNC Park

The opposing players shouted at their pitcher: He's going home!

It didn't matter. Doug Johnson Jr. was too fast, his timing perfect. He hadn't tried to steal home before, but the 16-year-old shortstop, playing last week at PNC Park, was ready for this moment. His parents made sure of that.

From the moment Doug Jr. could walk, dad put a bat in his boy's hands.

Doug Johnson Sr. — who watched the CitiParks Pittsburgh 2015 Colt League Championship Game between Brighton Heights and Greenfield from behind the third base dugout — grew up playing street ball in Northview Heights and rooting for the “We Are Family” Pirates of the 1970s. Even today, at 45, he plays on three softball teams.

And he was sure to pass on his love of the game to his only son.

The boy was a natural, Doug Sr. recalled. He could hit all day, and often did. When dad, a custodian with Pittsburgh Public Schools, went to work, mom stepped in, tossing balls to the boy and chasing them down when he launched them.

“I knew he had talent,” dad said. “He just loves baseball.”

One day, when Doug Jr. was 3, his father arrived home and learned that his son quit playing that day because it was his turn to field. He wanted only to hit.

“I said, if you don't want to field, baseball's over for you,” Doug Sr. said, because real baseball players do everything and are prepared for any situation.

From that moment on, Doug Jr. walked around with his glove, not just his bat. He developed a relationship with the piece of leather many ballplayers do, a bond so deep that he cringes when others touch it.

“He won't even put it in his bag,” his mom, Jessica Johnson, said. “He has to carry it himself.”

He plays other sports, but Doug Jr. stuck with baseball even as many of his friends dropped it in favor of basketball or football, a trend Pirates star Andrew McCutchen warned about in a February article for The Players' Tribune. Thirty years ago, about one in five Big Leaguers was black. Now it's closer to one in 12.

Johnson, who will be a junior at Perry Traditional Academy on the North Side, hopes to be one of them, some day.

But first things first.

A straight steal of home is one of the rarest plays in baseball, at any level.

Occasionally, a player will steal home as part of a double-steal, where a runner on first breaks for second, the catcher throws across the diamond and the runner on third goes home. But a straight steal of home — where the runner on third simply beats the pitch to the plate — almost never happens.

In the second inning of the scoreless championship game, Doug Jr. stood on third and studied Greenfield's hard-throwing left-hander start his windup and kick his right leg into the air. Doug Jr. immediately took several quick steps toward the plate, then stopped. He did the same on the next pitch, and the next, getting his timing down.

He turned to the stands and made eye contact with his parents. For all to see, he mouthed the words: I'm going home.

Dad nodded. He raised his camera to record the moment.

On the next pitch, Doug Jr. took off. He glided down the line, his long legs seeming to skim across the surface of the dirt. The pitch and runner arrived simultaneously and Doug Jr. slid toward the infield, away from the catcher. He swiped his hand across the plate just ahead of the tag attempt.

He'd done it: He'd stolen home. In the championship game. At PNC Park, no less.

Coach Jimmy Notaro smiled; his teammates jumped up and down.

In the stands, Doug Sr. roared. He was so excited that the video he took was worthless. “The camera went all over the place,” he said sheepishly. “Every time I watch him play he does something different.”

Through five innings of the seven-inning game, Johnson's steal of home was the only run scored. But Greenfield rallied late and Brighton Heights fell 4-1, because while Johnson was the best player at PNC Park that night, Greenfield was the better team.

Near the first base dugout, Greenfield players hoisted the championship trophy.

On the other side of the field, fans continued to buzz about the kid from Brighton Heights who pulled off a true baseball rarity.