Sadly, baseball has lost one of its most eccentric and iconic characters. Rickey Henderson, Hall of Famer and all-time stolen base and runs scored leader has passed away at the age of 65.
Henderson, arguably the fastest and one of the most athletic players in the history of the sport, once claimed that he was born fast. He claimed this because he was born before his parents could make it to a Chicago, IL hospital on Christmas Day 1958, being born in the back of their Oldsmobile instead.
His young life was unstable, bouncing around the country before his family settled down in Oakland when he was seven. Oakland would become a special place in Henderson’s story. He would star in basketball and football as well as baseball at Oakland Technical High School, being an All-American running back to go along with a potential draftee in the baseball Amateur Draft. On the advice of his mother, because football players have shorter and harder careers, Henderson would eschew several football scholarships and would be selected by the local Oakland Athletics in the 4th round of the 1976 MLB Draft.
Just over three years later, Henderson would make his MLB debut on June 24th, 1979, at the Oakland Coliseum. He would lead off, go two for four in the game and steal the first of the 1,406 bases that he would pilfer over the course of his career.
Looking back, Henderson’s mother might have been onto something as he would play in 25 different MLB seasons- every year between 1979 and 2003. To put that in perspective, Henderson took his first Major League at-bat the same year that music cassette tapes first hit the market. His last at-bats came less than two years after the release of the iPod.
In that time, he played for nine different teams. Henderson possessed a unique combination of unabashed self-confidence that he was never afraid to voice, a deep desire to seek his worth on baseball’s open market, and yet a sincere reverence for being an Oakland Athletic. He played for nine different teams in his career but also played for the As in four different instances. Having referred to playing in Oakland as being home, he played there in what amounted to about thirteen seasons in total. While this news is undoubtedly sad, it does seem rather poetic that his passing comes a mere months before the As plan to disembark from Oakland for Sacramento, and ultimately, Las Vegas.
As for that self-confidence, Henderson could be considered the game’s best and most distinctive self-promoter since Satchel Paige. Often speaking in the third person and with a deep confidence in himself, Henderson played in an era when athletes conveying themselves in such a way was seen as hubris and incredibly distasteful. But he had his own characteristic way with words. This includes statements like:
“Nothing is impossible for Rickey. You don’t have enough fingers and toes to count out Rickey.”
Or the time he was a free agent and called San Diego General Manager Kevin Towers and left a voicemail simply saying “This is Rickey, calling on behalf of Rickey. Rickey wants to play baseball.”
Or the time one of his teammates was headed to the plate after Henderson struck out and overheard Henderson telling himself “Don’t worry Rickey, you’re still the best.”
Henderson would likely have never been the ballplayer he became without such confidence. With over 1700 stolen base attempts in his career, more than anyone else ever and by far, he doesn’t reach the heights he did as an absolute base-running menace without a strong sense of confidence and a short memory. Truthfully, that confidence mostly came from a fun-loving and positive place, and it fueled his success.
But in showing that Henderson wasn’t just shallow and selfish like some may think due to his words, he also said the following over the course of his career.
“If my uniform doesn’t get dirty, I haven’t done anything in a baseball game.”
“Rickey was never motivated by stats. He was motivated by numbers. Wins, runs, steals.”
“People say I stole a lot of bases. I stole those bases for a reason. I crossed the plate.”
That’s right. Rickey did cross the plate. More than any other baseball player ever. In one additional quote, upon breaking the all-time stolen base record in 1991 (a full 12 years before retiring) he proclaimed himself the greatest of all time.
He was right. He’s the greatest base-stealer of all time. The greatest lead-off man of all time also holds the record for most lead-off home runs in history by more than twenty dingers (81). In 2023, MLB made the bases bigger and limited pick-off attempts in part to try to aid the stolen base portion of baseball strategy. Ronald Acuna Jr. topped out at 73 steals in 2023, the most of anyone in these past two seasons. Henderson stole more than 73 bases in seven different seasons. With smaller bases and no pick-off limits. That’s how good he was.
He’s a Hall of Famer, a 10-time All-Star, a three-time Silver Slugger (he also had an exceptional batting eye, leading the league in walks in four different seasons and mounting a .401 career on-base percentage), a two-time World Series Champ and 1990 American League Most Valuable Player (.325/.439/.577, 65 steals, 28 homers, 119 runs).
Most of all, he was something baseball always craves: a talented and strong personality that wanted to win. He was Rickey, and both his personality and play would never let you forget it.
Watch highlights from the late-great Rickey Henderson CLICK HERE
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