Rickey Henderson

Rickey Nelson Henley Henderson was born on Christmas Day in the back seat of an Oldsmobile, grew up in Oakland playing football and baseball, turned down college scholarships on his mother's advice because she thought baseball was safer, and then spent 25 years running the bases harder than anyone who ever lived. He stole 1,406 bases, 468 more than Lou Brock in second place, a gap larger than most Hall of Famers' entire stolen base totals. He scored 2,295 runs, more than any player in major league history. He hit 81 leadoff home runs, more than anyone. He collected 3,055 hits, drew 2,190 walks, won the 1990 AL MVP, and played until he was 44 because he believed, with some justification, that nobody could replace him. Bill James wrote, "If you could split him in two, you'd have two Hall of Famers." The BBWAA elected him in 2009 with 94.8% of the vote. He died on December 20, 2024, in Oakland, at 65.

Oakland

Henderson was born on December 25, 1958, in Chicago, Illinois. His father John left when Rickey was two and later died in an automobile accident. His mother Bobbie moved the family to Pine Bluff, Arkansas, to live with Rickey's grandmother, then relocated to Oakland when Rickey was seven. During Rickey's junior year of high school, Bobbie married Paul Henderson, who adopted all five sons. Rickey took the Henderson surname.

Henderson attended Oakland Technical High School, where he starred in baseball, basketball, and football. He was an All-American running back with two seasons of more than 1,000 rushing yards and received scholarship offers from multiple colleges. Bobbie steered him toward baseball. "It was safer," she told him. The Oakland Athletics drafted Henderson in the fourth round of the 1976 draft.

The Record

Henderson stole 100 bases in 1980, breaking Ty Cobb's 65-year-old American League record of 96. In 1982 he stole 130, shattering Brock's single-season record of 118. The record still stands.

On May 1, 1991, Henderson stole his 939th career base against the New York Yankees, breaking Brock's all-time record. He lifted the base over his head at the ceremony and told the crowd, "Lou Brock was the symbol of great base stealing. But today, I'm the greatest of all time." He later said the words haunted him. "As soon as I said it, it ruined everything. They overshadow what I've accomplished." He also clarified that Brock "had no problem with it. In fact, he helped me write what I was going to say that day."

Henderson stole bases at an 81% success rate across his career. His 1,406 steals are nearly 50% greater than Brock's 938. The gap between them is larger than the entire career stolen base totals of Roberto Clemente, Ernie Banks, and Kirby Puckett combined.

The MVP

Henderson played for the Athletics, the Yankees, the Blue Jays, the Padres, the Mets, the Angels, the Mariners, the Red Sox, and the Dodgers across 25 seasons, with four separate stints in Oakland. He won the 1989 ALCS MVP, batting .400 with eight stolen bases, two home runs, and seven walks as the Athletics swept the Giants in the World Series. In 1990 he won the AL MVP, batting .325 with a .439 on-base percentage, 65 stolen bases, 119 runs scored, and 28 home runs.

Henderson adopted an exaggerated batting crouch that shrank his strike zone to one of the smallest in baseball. He drew 2,190 career walks, the all-time record at his retirement (Barry Bonds later surpassed it), and still holds the record for unintentional walks with 2,129. He surpassed Babe Ruth's career walk record on April 25, 2001, passed Ty Cobb for the all-time runs scored record on October 4, 2001, and collected his 3,000th hit on October 7, 2001, a leadoff double off John Thomson of the Colorado Rockies.

Henderson was the first player alongside Ted Williams and Willie McCovey to homer in four different decades. He played his last major league game on September 19, 2003, with the Los Angeles Dodgers, at 44, and then played two more seasons in independent ball because he was not finished. At his Hall of Fame induction in 2009, at 50, he told reporters, "If you gave me as many at-bats as you would give the runners out there today, I would outsteal every last one of them."

Rickey

Henderson routinely referred to himself in the third person and explained the habit in 2003, saying, "Rickey says it when Rickey doesn't do what Rickey needs to be doing." "Rickey uses it to remind himself." He framed his first $1 million signing bonus check instead of cashing it, losing months of interest. He saved his per diem cash in envelopes as rewards for his children's school performance. Billy Beane called him "the greatest leadoff hitter of all time, and I'm not sure there's a close second." Trevor Hoffman said, "Years from now, I'll be able to say I played with Rickey Henderson, and I imagine it will be like saying I played with Babe Ruth."

Henderson finished with 3,055 hits, 510 doubles, 297 home runs, 1,115 RBI, 1,406 stolen bases, and a .279 batting average across 3,081 games and 25 seasons. He scored 2,295 runs. He hit 81 leadoff home runs. He made 10 All-Star teams, won one MVP, two World Series rings (1989, 1993), one Gold Glove, and three Silver Sluggers. The Athletics retired his number 24 on August 1, 2009, and named the Oakland Coliseum playing field in his honor on April 3, 2017.

Henderson died on December 20, 2024, at UCSF Medical Center in San Francisco, of pneumonia. He was admitted for sinus surgery related to chronic asthma but contracted pneumonia before the procedure could take place. He was five days short of his 66th birthday. "If my uniform doesn't get dirty," he once said, "I haven't done anything in the baseball game."