Base stealing: a vital offensive weapon is finding its way back into prominence among big league speedsters.

CARL CRAWFORD WAS FAST, MAYBE the fastest athlete to ever walk down the streets of Houston's Fifth Ward.

But when Crawford, now a left fielder for the Tampa Bay Devil Rays, made up his mind to go straight into major league baseball's amateur draft out of Jefferson Davis High School in 1999, he didn't let his legs do the talking.

"I just wanted to hit home runs," said Crawford, who batted .563 with seven homers his senior year and gave up stacks of football and basketball scholarships to some of the best schools in the country. "I was always fast, but it didn't really matter.

"No one was coming out to see me run. They wanted someone who could drive the ball out of the park."

Now Crawford, along with several other players throughout baseball, is making a point of reversing that trend, which won't be easy.

During the last 20 years, the number of home runs hit by teams has increased by more than 30 percent. The number of steals during that period has declined by 29 percent, most pointedly illustrated in 2003 and '04, when teams failed to average at least 90 steals in back-to-back seasons for the first time in 31 years.

"Baseball's a beautiful game of power and speed, but base running, which is the game's finest art, just isn't that important anymore," said Maury Wills, who became the first man to steal 100 bases While with the Los Angeles Dodgers in 1962. "It's so much easier to take batting practice, take some swings, put the ball over the fence than it is to actually get out, run and learn how to steal bases."