Exit, Rickey Henderson
The Hall of Famer was baseball's most electrifying talent. He peppered the game with a dose of style and personality that won't be seen again.
Major League Baseball (MLB) lost another immortal when Rickey Henderson, the most electrifying leadoff hitter the game has ever known, died over the weekend after a bout with pneumonia. He was just 65, which again seems way too early these days.
Henderson reached the majors with the Oakland A’s in 1979, and spent 25 seasons terrorizing opposing teams on the base paths. He stole 100 bases or more three times in his career, and set the modern mark for steals in a season with a mind boggling 130 in 1982. He led the league in steals on 12 separate seasons, the last time in 1998 at the age of 39. Needless, to say, he’s the game’s all-time leader in stolen bases, and has been since he passed another member of the Baseball Hall of Fame, Lou Brock, all the way back in 1991. He celebrated the occasion with his trademark understatement.
He scored more runs than any other player in the history of baseball. I was lucky to see him break the record in person at Jack Murphy Stadium when he hit a home run against the Los Angeles Dodgers near the end of the 2001 MLB season to pass Ty Cobb. In Rickey style, he celebrated by sliding into home plate, delighting his teammates and everyone in attendance. He’s second all-time in walks, but the record he owns that might never be broken is the 81 times he led off a game with a home run, a feat that ranks as one of the most deflating an opposing team ever has to endure.
Henderson was also a true character of the game, and deserves to be mentioned in the same breath as the late Yogi Berra. While Berra is beloved for his malaprops — both real and imagined — Henderson is just as famous for the sort of self-referential talk that was simultaneously baffling and endearing, like this example that New York Mets radio play-by-play voice Harry Rose shared on Saturday.
Henderson was often dinged by sports writers who were put off by his braggadocio, but as they say in the big leagues, it’s not bragging if it’s true, and it was never more true than with Henderson. I learned to enjoy it later in his career, when he was carpetbagging his way across the majors looking for work with any team that needed somebody who could get on base and shake things up. In 1999 he ended up with the Mets, and batted .315 at age 40 as part of a platoon in left field. He didn’t stick around long — at that point in his career he rarely did — but boy was it fun while it lasted.
Henderson played his last major league game with the Los Angeles Dodgers in 2004, but while MLB was done with him, he wasn’t done with baseball. For two more seasons at the age of 45 and 46, Henderson played with independent minor league teams in Newark and San Diego, hoping to get one more call to “The Show.” While that call never came, he didn’t have to wait long to get one from Cooperstown, as he was inducted in 2009 alongside Jim Rice and the late Joe Gordon. When Henderson accepted the honor, all of the swagger was gone, and all that was left was an old ballplayer who was grateful for anyone who had helped him along the way.
Bravo Zulu, Mr. Henderson. Thanks for putting a charge into the game that we likely won’t see again, along with a singular dose of personality. The memory of you and your career is a blessing. May you enjoy fair winds and following seas.
This will be my last post for 2024. The holidays and time with family beckon, but know that I’ll be back in 2025 to do this again. It more or less looks like you can count on me to post on Mondays once we enter the new year, as that feels like a pace that makes sense given my personal and professional responsibilities. Thanks so much for coming along for the ride, no matter where this latest effort might end up.
Happy holidays to you all. May the next few weeks be filled with fun and family.