Terrance Gore played in 112 major league regular-season games over eight seasons, stealing 48 bases in 58 attempts.
Terrance Gore, a dynamic baserunner whose speed positively impacted postseason games for nearly a decade, has died at age 34, the Kansas City Royals announced Saturday.
According to USA Today, Britney Gore, his wife, posted on social media that Gore died from complications after routine surgery. He is survived by three children.
“It’s very sad to wake up and hear this,” said the Dodgers’ Dave Roberts, one of many major league managers who used Gore as a pinch runner during his career. “He was one of the safest base stealers I’ve ever known.”
Eric Hosmer was Gore’s teammate on the Royals.
“Absolutely terrible news,” he wrote in a text message. “A great teammate.”
Gore had 85 plate appearances during his major league career and batted .216. But in some months of September and October, he led the Major Leagues in the fear he instilled in rivals thanks to his speed. He was often added to rosters at the end of the regular season, first by the Royals and later by the Chicago Cubs, Dodgers and New York Mets, to serve as a pinch runner, usually in the late innings of close games. He played in the major leagues for parts of eight seasons and, in just 112 regular-season games and 11 more in the postseason, stole 48 bases in 58 attempts.
Buck Showalter coached against Gore when the Baltimore Orioles faced the Royals in the playoffs and had Gore on his roster in 2022 when he played for the Mets.
“I called him to talk to him about what his role would be, but he already knew,” Showalter said. “He was a formidable weapon. He fit in very well. He didn’t take things too seriously.”
Gore took batting practice daily and worked in the outfield before games. But Gore and his teammates knew how he would be used: If his team lost by one run in the late innings, or if the score was tied, then he would be sent into the game as a pinch runner.
“If the score was tied and you ran it,” Showalter said, “it was like the game was over.”
Showalter mentioned that players like Gore and Deion Sanders were different in terms of their speed. Some players are fast, Showalter said, but when Gore ran, he ran at another level. “We knew we couldn’t take him out with one pitch,” he recalled. “He was sliding with great agility, and then we tried to get him off the base with the touch of the glove.” [ya que a veces se levantaba después de llegar a la base]. But if you just tried to take him out with a throw, forget it, it wasn’t going to happen.”
When Roberts was playing for the Boston Red Sox in 2004, he played a similar role to Gore during his career, notable for stealing a base against Mariano Rivera and the New York Yankees in the playoffs, before scoring the tying run, crucial to the outcome of the game. Roberts discussed this with Gore when the player joined the Dodgers in 2020.
“I knew exactly what I was talking about,” Roberts said. “He was a good teammate.”
Gore was born and raised in Georgia, and after playing for Gulf Coast State College in Panama City, Florida, he was selected in the 20th round of the 2011 draft by the Royals, the 606th player to be chosen. In the minor leagues, Gore had a .237 batting average with a .334 on-base percentage; he hit only one home run in 2,585 plate appearances. But it was very fast.
“His acceleration was amazing,” wrote Dayton Moore, former Royals general manager. “He was fearless on the bases. He was in control of the situation on the bases; I was always worried about him getting hurt because he was sliding late and too hard.”
Moore recalled that Gore thought about retiring when he was playing in Class A, but Mike Sweeney and Lonnie Goldberg, then in the Royals organization, talked him out of it.
“He wasn’t content to just be known for stealing bases,” Moore said. “He worked a lot to become a starting player.”
