Green means go

Josh Hall has a perpetual green light. There’s no slowing down or stopping when he’s on the base paths.

The Homewood High School senior has earned that right. He established his legacy as Alabama’s top base-stealer when he broke a state record on March 14, by stealing his 165th career base against John Carroll.

“He stole his 165th without me saying anything to him,” said Lee Hall, Josh Hall’s father and Homewood’s baseball coach.

Just over a month later, Josh Hall cemented his status as the best thief in the history of high school baseball.

On Friday night, Hall stole the 212th of his career, breaking the national record previously held by Haddon McIntosh of Norman Community School in Oklahoma.

After reaching on a bunt in the second inning in the first game of the Patriots' Class 6A playoff game against Minor, Josh Hall took off for second and beat the throw. His teammates spilled out of the dugout and Josh Hall proudly removed the second base bag from play. An emotional embrace between father and son was the culmination of years of hard work.

“I never thought this day would come,” said Josh Hall. "It's a pretty awesome feeling. I wanted to get it done early in this game and luckily I did."

Setting an ‘insane goal’

Josh Hall spent the first three years of his high school career at the Randolph School in Huntsville playing for his dad. Following his freshman year, his dad gave him and his brother, Carson (now a freshman pitcher at the University of Memphis), a blank Coroplast sign. The instruction was to pick a handful of goals that each had visions of accomplishing the next season.

On Josh Hall’s board, he wrote a big number: 77. That number represented the amount of bases he needed to steal his sophomore campaign to set the state record for stolen bases in a single season.

The brothers hung up their signs in the garage, in the same area where they had a net to hit baseballs. Josh Hall couldn’t ignore the big goal he set.

“Every day when I went down and saw that number,” Josh Hall said. “It was cool to actually do it.”

The previous state record was actually 75, instead of 76 like he initially thought. The slight discrepancy made no difference at all, as he went on to steal 81 bags that year to etch his name atop the state record books.

As a freshman, Josh Hall stole 24 bases in just 26 games before his breakout sophomore year. He battled a lingering hamstring injury last spring but still managed to swipe 37 bases, leaving him 24 from the record entering 2018. It took him all of 14 games to reach that number.

“I had this insane goal that I set for myself and I thought was going to be really hard to achieve. I finally did it and it was a huge relief. It felt really good,” he said.

Perfecting the art

Josh Hall has never been the biggest guy. In many cases, he’s been the smallest guy. But he has worked hard to maximize his frame. Lee Hall estimated that his son has put on 40 pounds since his freshman year. He now stands 5-foot-9 and weighs 175 pounds.

Josh Hall said that along with working in the weight room, he has put in the time to develop his speed as well. He joked that he’s not sure where his quickness came from, but he has used it to perfect the art of stealing a base.

The first step to stealing second base is taking a lead off first. Opposing pitchers now know Josh Hall’s propensity to take off, so they pay particularly close attention to him. But that doesn’t stop him from taking a sizable lead.

“I like to get big leads because I can trust myself on a pickoff,” he said. “I have to shorten it if I know a guy has a really good move, which we’ve faced a couple times this year.”

Once Josh Hall knows the pitcher is going to the plate, he’s off. He has studied film of Major League Baseball players like Billy Hamilton of the Cincinnati Reds and Trea Turner of the Washington Nationals to pick up on ways to improve his first step, the most critical of the dozen or so it takes to get to second.

“The start is so important, because if you can’t get out quick — it doesn’t matter how fast you are — that’s the biggest part of it,” he said. “You’ve got to be quick out of the gate to be successful.”

Once he approaches second base, Josh Hall’s go-to move is a headfirst slide, which results in the occasional bloody knee. But if he slides in safely, it’s more than worth it.

However, none of that would be possible without Josh Hall being able to reach base as often as he does. That’s his job at the plate, plain and simple, whether that means taking a walk, putting down a bunt, or maybe even hitting a home run (he’s hit the first four long balls of his career this year).

“His role is to get on base, no matter how, steal bases and score runs,” Lee Hall said. “That has been ingrained in his mindset his whole life.”

After reaching base, Josh Hall has relied on the patience shown by older brother Carson Hall for three years and Ben Teel this season to allow him the opportunity to take off on the proper pitch.

“Those are important things to that need to be recognized,” Lee Hall said. “It’s not just him. There’s other guys that have to be involved.”

A new home

Despite Josh Hall moving in just prior to this season, after playing the last three years at the Randolph, Homewood has become home quickly.

“They’ve been awesome,” Josh Hall said of his new teammates. “Ever since I came here, they just welcomed me with open arms and accepted me.”

He has quickly become a player that others look up to and pitching coach Keith Brown credited Josh Hall’s mindset for making the transition smooth.

“He has just come in and is very humble and he’s led the way with his work ethic,” Brown said.

That work ethic will lead Josh Hall to Ole Miss after this season. According to his father, he “brings something to the table that nobody else really can do,” in terms of his skillset.

But as for the final season of his high school career, Lee Hall gets emotional when speaking of the move to Homewood.

Lee Hall said, “When he broke that record, to see how those guys responded, it was unbelievable. I’ll never forget it. It was a genuine love those guys showed for him for something he achieved here, even though a lot of it was done at another school.”