by Mark Jent
Devastating news today as the baseball world mourns the sudden passing of the great Rickey Henderson. He was 65 years old, just four days shy of his 66th birthday.
Rickey Henderson was the greatest lead off hitter and base stealer in baseball history. A solid argument could be made Rickey Henderson is one of the greatest ten players of all-time. There are some ballplayers who you can just say their first name and without question you know who it is: Mickey, Willie, Hank….and because of how great he was and how often he talked in third person, Rickey is on that short list.
I great up as a kid in the 80s and 90s and Rickey Henderson was one of the games greatest stars. What he did on the field was remarkable, but his personality seemed even bigger than his records. His 1988 Kenner Starting Lineup was one of the first figures I got when that inaugural set debuted when I was 10 years old. I’ve still got it tucked away along with other SLUs from that collecting era.
I had the privilege of meeting Rickey in July 2023 in the plaque gallery at the Hall of Fame during induction weekend in Cooperstown. It was a bit surreal to meet him and get this picture in the place where his legacy will be immortalized forever. With his bronze plaque just a few feet away from us and his records littering the museum all around, I recognized in that brief moment that I was in the presence of greatness.
After Willie Mays passed away this summer I thought to myself “Okay now who is the greatest living player?” I never settled on a ranking, but Rickey kept coming to mind as a viable number one.
Here are some of his notable achievements
1st – stolen bases: 1,406
1st – lead off HRs: 81
1st – walks: 2,190 (was first when he retired)
1st – runs scored: 2,295
1st – stolen bases season: 130
1st – led league in steals 12x
1st – consecutive seasons with most stolen bases: 7x
4th – games played: 3,081
4th – plate appearances: 13,346
3,055 career hits
111 career Wins Above Replacment, 3rd most in last 50 years for position player
2x World Series champion: 1989 Oakland, 1993 Toronto
10x All-Star
3x Silver Slugger
1981 Gold Glove
1990 American League MVP
2009 Baseball Hall of Fame Inductee
His most poignant career highlight took place in 1991 when he broke Lou Brock’s career stolen base record with his 939th stolen base. After his usual head first slide and with his shades making him look cooler than any player on the field, he held third base high above his head and proclaimed in an on-field ceremony “Today, I am the greatest of all time.” The Oakland faithful erupted.
He played 25 seasons. He finished his career playing 30 games for the Dodgers in 2003 at age 44. The story goes that he never officially submitted his retirement papers to MLB because he felt like he still had it if a team would just give him a chance. In 2009 he was elected to the Baseball Hall of Fame with 94.9% of the vote. (FYI – somewhere on planet earth there were six people who didn’t vote for Rickey and they should be banned from ever watching a baseball game again.)
Crazy Rickey Stats
Rickey once went 0-0 in a game with 5 stolen bases and 4 runs scored. He walked 4 times, but had zero official plate appearances.
Rickey stole 326 bases for the Yankees in just 596 games. It took Derek Jeter 2,343 games to break Rickey’s franchise record.
When Rickey joined the Red Sox late in his career in 2002 he had 1,395 stolen bases over his then 23 year career. During that same 23 year timeframe since Rickey had made his major league debut the Red Sox entire franchise had only 1,382 stolen bases.
Rickey Henderson has 1,000 more stolen bases than today’s active leader – Starling Marte’s 354. For someone to break his record they would have to average 50 steals a season for 28+ years. Like Ripken’s 2,632 consecutive games, DiMaggio’s 56 game hit streak, Nolan Ryan’s 5,714 strikeouts or Pete Rose’s 4,256 career hits – Rickey’s 1,406 stolen bases is unbreakable.
Rickey Stories
In the early 80s Rickey got a $1 million bonus check from the Oakland A’s. Later the front office accounting department couldn’t balance their books and realized they were a $1 million off. Believe it or not, weeks had gone by and Rickey had not cashed his bonus check. They called Rickey to ask about it and he told them he had framed the check and had it hanging on his wall. When asked why Rickey says “Because I told myself whenever I made a million dollars that I would frame it.” They convinced him to cash it and they would give it to him to put back in the frame.
In 1987 Rickey got hurt in May and was injured for much of the season, ending his streak of 7 straight stolen base titles. The Mariners’ Harold Reynolds led the league in stolen bases with 60. The day after the season ended Reynolds got a phone call, “Henderson here. Only 60 stolen bases, you should be ashamed of yourself. If I was healthy I’d had 60 by the All-Star Break,” and then Rickey just hung up the phone!
Rickey was a Christmas baby born on December 25, 1958. His mother couldn’t get inside the hospital in time, so with the help of the nurse he was born in the backseat of the car when they pulled up. Rickey would always say, “I was born fast.”
His family moved to Oakland when he was 10 years old and he was drafted by hometown A’s in 1976. He made his MLB Debut in 1979 and spend 14 of his 25 seasons with his hometown Athletics. In 2017 the A’s honored him with Rickey Henderson Field at the Coliseum. Just in September he threw out the last 1st pitch in Oakland A’s history in their final game at the Oakland Coliseum. He was and will forever be a revered icon in Oakland.
Even long after his career was over, Rickey was always Rickey and that is what will be missed the most.
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Mark Jent is the chief trip planner and designated storyteller for Simply A Fan. He lives in Nashville with his wife Beth, and their three kids, Brooklyn, Harrison and Zach. He enjoys cheering on his Dodgers, reading baseball history, hiking at Radnor Lake and chasing waterfalls throughout Tennessee with his family. He launched Simply A Fan in July 2018 with the two-fold purpose of taking people on adventures to ballparks across the country and providing fans a platform to share their baseball stories. He is currently on a quest to meet as many of the living Brooklyn Dodgers as possible.
