> ## Content Index > Fetch the complete content index at: https://www.newbostonpost.com/llms.txt > Use this file to discover other available public pages before exploring further. # Before Red Sox Prospect Braiden Ward Stole Bases, He Won BMX Races - URL: https://www.newbostonpost.com/braiden-ward-bmx-racing-red-sox/ - Published: 2026-09-30T21:23:38.000Z - Updated: 2026-09-30T21:23:38.000Z - Description: Braiden Ward stole a Red Sox Triple-A record 61 bases this season. As a kid, he won BMX races and says biking helped make him faster. - Author: Tom Joyce - Tags: Sports, Red Sox, #lead, #morning-bell, morning-bell, #2 If you Google [Braiden Ward](https://www.baseball-reference.com/register/player.fcgi?id=ward--003bra&utm%5Fmedium=linker&utm%5Fsource=www.baseball-reference.com&utm%5Fcampaign=2026-09-30%5Fbr)’s name, some of the oldest search results have nothing to do with baseball. It turns out he was an excellent BMX biker as a little kid. Nearly 20 years before Ward set the Red Sox all-time single-season Triple-A stolen base record with 61 steals for the Worcester Red Sox this past season, he was winning BMX races in California. USA BMX shows his [first-place finish](https://www.usabmx.com/events/145968/results?ref=newbostonpost.com) in the 8-year-old expert division at a Redline Cup qualifier in Santa Clara on August 12, 2007\. It also lists a [fourth-place finish](https://www.usabmx.com/events/128513/results?ref=newbostonpost.com) in the 10-year-old expert division at another Redline Cup qualifier on October 3, 2009. And though Ward told NewBostonPost he no longer rides his childhood bike – because it's too small – he still has it, along with some of his trophies. “I kept a few trophies, like one called the Redline Cup,” Ward said. “They gave trophies out for everything. I was little, and they were the same size as me, right? And they were the coolest thing in the world.” The 27-year-old California native grew up a little after the peak of extreme sports in the late 1990s and early 2000s, but he said his family got him into it. “My uncle was big into it. His kids did it, and because of him, I kind of got into it when I think I was 8 or 10 or something like that,” Ward said. It’s one of a few sports he played as a kid. Ward also did water polo in high school. But he was always a good baseball player. When he was younger, his two favorites were baseball and BMX. “It was a mix of both, right?" he said. "Because when you’re so young, you’re doing all these kinds of sports, but outside of school, the only sports that we were doing were BMX and baseball." However, for Ward, there was one big difference. “With baseball, you could actually play it in college, and it was actually a professional sport,” he said. “I also just liked baseball more. And so I just followed that.” Ward previously told NewBostonPost he credits some of his speed to doing BMX as a kid. “I think BMX made me a lot faster. Just from spinning those pedals as fast as you can, just sprinting those quick-twitch muscles, just to go, go, go, go, go,” Ward [told](https://www.newbostonpost.com/woosox-braiden-ward-interview-speed-stolen-bases-bmx/) NewBostonPost in March. “Like I said, all my friends who did BMX as well, they were all super fast. So, probably something there.” He may be onto something there. A 2020 [study](https://rke.abertay.ac.uk/en/publications/changes-in-lactate-kinetics-underpin-soccer-performance-adaptatio/?ref=newbostonpost.com) found that teenage soccer players ran faster over the second half of a 20-meter sprint after six weeks of sprint training on stationary bikes.