There is a new excitement over at Les Murakami Stadium and has little to do with whether the Rainbows win or lose.

It is how they play the game.

The Running Rainbows have brought an age-old baseball strategy out of extinction, already stealing as many bases as they did all last year. It isn’t just the burners like Scotty Scott and Cole Cabrera, even catcher DallasJ Duarte is in on the act with a team-tying six thefts.

New coach Rich Hill doesn’t have much to work with, and his hitters have a hard time getting on base. So when one does, he wants to take advantage of the rare opportunity and create as much chaos for the pitcher as he can. Any runner is liable to take off for second at any time and opponents know it by now, forcing pitchers to keep one eye on first base and limit their repertoires to hard stuff. All hitters like the hard stuff.

You can hear the buzz in the stadium when someone like Cabrera reaches first, and that has been lacking since Joe Spiers put the fear into catchers almost two decades ago.

I have always loved the running game, and never bought the theory that unless you are successful 75% of the time you are hurting your team. A fast guy on first base changes everything, and no matter what analytics says, run-differential over a season means less than scoring more runs than your opponent in a single game. Duh.

Just as there is truth in football that if you can design one play that is guaranteed to gain 2.6 yards every time you will score on every possession, if you can win or tie every inning you will never lose a baseball game.

Historic home run chases like in 1920, 1961, 1998 or 2001 are exciting stuff, for sure, but for me nothing compared to the Omar Moreno-Ron LeFlore stolen base battle in 1980.

Moreno is one of my all-time favorite players and my brother adored the Expos. Our summer was spent hiking down to our uncle’s house every morning to borrow their newspaper and check the box scores. LeFlore won the battle 97-96 with steals of second and third as a pinch-runner on the final day of the season despite playing with a broken hand. He could have taken third on the catcher’s error when he swiped second, but stayed put so that he could steal third and the crown. He actually finished second to Rickey Henderson’s 100, but at 11 years old I was wise enough to abhor the DH and the junior league didn’t count until October.

My brother still reminds me of that chase to this day. He won and I lost but I was smitten. From Whitey Herzog’s 1985 NL champion Cardinals to the 2015 Kansas City Royals defying convention with their speed, I have loved the running game ever since.

Despite Dave Roberts of the Red Sox showing the importance of the steal in Game 4 of the 2004 ALCS against the Yankees, attempts have dropped by a third in the last decade. It is one of modern baseball’s greatest shames, but it might reverse itself when Commissioner Rob Manfred shortens the 90 feet between bases that Hawaii’s Alexander Joy Cartwright allegedly paced off in 1842. There have not been more stolen bases than home runs in a season in two decades.

Hill seems to really understand the running game, check out his success rate the last four years: 74-74-73-73. Sure it is below the magic 75% number, but that consistency suggests that he has done this a time or two. Even more impressive is his impact on other teams. Only 20 opponents have tried to steal on him this year, for a 70% success rate. In the last three full seasons nobody runs on him, averaging less than one attempt a game. Hawaii catchers throw out 70% of base stealers this year, right in line with Hill’s historic trend.

Hill could stop running right now, the main thing is the threat of the run and he has already achieved that. Much like Chuck Tanner allowing his 1979 Pittsburgh Pirates to steal 180 bases in the regular season and none in the World Series, Hill is already in the other coach’s head. Here’s hoping that when he replaces Mike Trapasso’s players with his own he keeps sprinkling some speed into the Zippy’s chili.

For baseball fans of a certain age, that flavoring makes everything better.