The tributes to the good Rickey Henderson are pouring in after we realized of the Corridor of Famer’s unhappy, sudden passing, simply days earlier than his 66th birthday. Baseball’s “Man of Steal” has been rightly celebrated right here, there and in every single place for his place in historical past because the all-time stolen bases and runs scored chief, a member of the three,000 hit membership and, above all else, an endearing and endlessly entertaining determine within the sport.
However the best tribute to Henderson got here in deed, not phrase. And it got here previous to his passing, within the measures taken by MLB to reverse engineer a recreation that appears much more just like the one Rickey performed — a recreation wherein velocity and athleticism are incentivized and charisma is accentuated and celebrated.
“Once we thought of new guidelines for the sport lately,” Commissioner Rob Manfred mentioned in his assertion, “we had the period of Rickey Henderson in thoughts.”
Now, earlier than we go any additional, let’s be clear: There’s no replicating Rickey. He was certainly one of one.
Begin with a biographical fundamental: Rickey batted proper and threw left. Who does that? In MLB historical past — together with the old-timey 1800s — solely 70 place gamers have finished that. Of these 70, solely 9 performed 1,000 video games. And of these 9, just one performed effectively sufficient to make it to Cooperstown.
Rickey broke information and darn close to broke the sport. He didn’t simply usurp Lou Brock’s steals mark; he did it in his age-32 season. His 1,406 steals are 49.9% greater than the second-place Brock’s 938! This form of factor simply doesn’t occur in a serious statistical class … until someone’s going to return alongside and hit greater than 1,100 profession homers to blow proper previous Barry Bonds’ 762.
Nobody would ever let you know Rickey Henderson was the best participant who ever lived. We have a tendency to order that dialogue for the likes of Babe Ruth and Willie Mays. However together with his particular mix of energy, velocity and on-base capacity, Rickey was the best run scorer who ever lived, in a recreation wherein the thing is to attain runs. And he did it with a aptitude all his personal.
So, no, you possibly can’t recreate Rickey. However you possibly can summon his spirit.
And that’s finally what the league at massive lately tried to do.
When MLB unveiled its pitch clock and accompanying pitcher pickoff limits, in addition to greater bases, previous to the 2023 season, Rickey expressed his distaste for the brand new guidelines as solely he might.
“I want the sport could be simply left alone,” he informed The Athletic’s Brittany Ghiroli, “but when they’re going to [make these changes] they bought so as to add 50 or 60 [steals] on mine. That’s the brand new rule.”
Clearly, that’s not the way it works. Ty Cobb didn’t retroactively acquire any hits when MLB adopted a lighter, livelier ball, sans spit.
However Rickey’s aversion was comprehensible. In spite of everything, he didn’t want the additional help of pickoff limits and greater luggage on his highway to these 1,406 steals. And may that sacrosanct quantity ever be challenged within the period of simpler thievery (uncertain although that could be), there wouldn’t be any official asterisk connected, as a result of that’s not how MLB operates. Rickey would undeservedly be despatched to second … this time, in opposition to his will.
Nonetheless, it was telling that MLB unveiled the brand new guidelines together with a Bryan Cranston-narrated advert that inspired present gamers to “Run like Rickey!” It’s tougher than ever to hit (within the single season of 2024, Aaron Choose and Juan Soto have been the one gamers to eclipse the .401 on-base proportion that Henderson achieved over his total profession), so creating the base-stealing alternatives that Rickey made for himself is tough/unimaginable sufficient. However while you do attain, “operating like Rickey” is now incentivized in methods it merely hadn’t been in a era of risk-averse, analytics-driven stagnancy.
Henderson performed his final large league recreation in 2003 (he continued on in impartial ball in 2004 and 2005), proper across the time the sport at massive was re-orienting its method to the stolen base. As a result of entrance workplaces had gained a better mathematical appreciation for the worth of an out, they elevated the brink for what is appropriate from a stolen base success price standpoint. Briefly, they ran much less, and, finally, invested much less money and time in growing base stealers.
In 2022, the final season earlier than the adjustments, the Rangers led all MLB groups with 128 steals — or two fewer than Henderson had all by himself in his record-setting season of 1982.
The brand new guidelines have solely been in place for 2 seasons, and but we’ve already seen a seismic change. In 2024, the common variety of steals per crew was all the way in which as much as 121. So we’ve come — really, run — a great distance in a short while. And that’s earlier than we even begin to see the outcomes of the drafting and developmental adjustments taking root within the new setting.
Run like Rickey, please. It’s what the individuals need.
However there was a lot extra to Rickey’s recreation than steals alone. It was that violent approach he’d uncork his bat … after which flip it. It was that approach he’d pop his non-existent collar, post-homer, then “run” the bases with a intentionally, deliriously gradual, vast, hot-dogging trot. It was the way in which he’d snatch a fly ball with that semi-circular wielding of his glove that, when replicated on Little League fields throughout the continent, would all the time appear to finish with the ball slipping away and rolling away from the fielder. Solely Rickey might pull off that type of cool.
But it surely’s been rewarding lately to see the sport recover from itself, to see gamers progressively scale back the self-policing of character and let individuals be themselves. When Elly De La Cruz declares himself “the quickest man on the planet” or Soto stops to pound his chest in entrance of his dugout after hitting a go-ahead homer within the ALCS, that’s actual Rickey vitality.
We’re additionally seeing a sport that, due to the brand new guidelines, is trending youthful and extra athletic. The return to a Eighties tempo — the tempo Rickey performed in — and the elimination of maximum defensive shifts within the infield rewards those that preserve themselves within the type of bodily situation that Henderson someway maintained for 25 seasons (he final led the Majors in steals at age 39).
Rickey Henderson knew what this baseball enterprise was all about.
“I’m a performer,” he as soon as mentioned. “I give leisure.”
It is onerous to imagine we now need to consult with him up to now tense, as a result of all the pieces about Rickey was so current, so alive, so in-your-face. Ripping all these leadoff homers, efficiently swiping the bottom that everybody within the constructing (you, the catcher, the pitcher, the pitcher’s mom, and many others.) knew he was intent on swiping and enjoying the sport with such vitality and enthusiasm, he made baseball probably the most vibrant model of itself. And it says loads that, as MLB sought to extend its attraction and encourage new generations of followers, it turned again the clock to a distinct model of recreation:
