However the one Will Clark tells is certainly true.
A former All-Star first baseman for the Giants, “Will the Thrill” performed towards Henderson and the A’s within the 1989 “Bay Bridge World Collection,” however this story is from a Spring Coaching sport.
“So Rickey bought on first base,” Clark remembers. “And [A’s manager Tony] La Russa places the maintain signal on Rickey as a result of he desires Jose Canseco and Mark McGwire to see some pitches to hit.
“You would simply see that Rickey was getting [ticked] off.”
Whether or not it was within the World Collection or in Spring Coaching, you didn’t inform Rickey he couldn’t run.
“After about three pitches,” Clark stated, “he goes, ‘Thrill, Rickey gone.’”
Clark turned to the San Francisco dugout and yelled, “He’s working!”
Rickey ran. The Giants pitched out. Rickey was protected anyway.
“After he slid into second base, he jumped up,” Clark stated. “And he’s squatting down and pointing at me. He says, ‘I informed you, Thrill! Rickey gone!’”
“Rickey gone.” When that occurred on the basepaths, it was a factor to behold.
Clark’s fantastic story was simply considered one of many who former teammates and opponents recounted for this story, remembering Henderson on the anniversary of his passing, from issues as a consequence of pneumonia on Dec. 20, 2024.
The baseball world was shocked and saddened on the information of Henderson’s sudden passing, and for a lot of, it’s nonetheless arduous to imagine that he’s now not with us.
The large legacy he left, nevertheless, will endure. As will the legendary tales that solely develop of their mythic high quality because the years move.
However Henderson was greater than what we hear about in these tales. He was an incomparable reward to baseball, one who arrived on Christmas Day in 1958.
As we mark what would have been the all-time stolen base king’s 67th birthday, we requested a few of these he performed with and towards, in addition to some who managed him, what made Rickey so nice and who he was past the well-known anecdotes.
Rickey was Rickey earlier than he was ‘Rickey’
Henderson’s tendency to talk within the third individual was considered one of his most well-known idiosyncrasies.
Lots of the hottest tales involving Rickey featured Rickey speaking about Rickey. However lest you assume that this started after Henderson reached superstardom within the Main Leagues, the reality is that Rickey had been referring to himself within the third individual ever since he was a child.
“Proper round junior excessive or highschool, he began doing that,” stated Dave Stewart, a childhood buddy of Henderson’s from Oakland who was his teammate with the A’s and Blue Jays. “I do not know the place it got here from. Rickey was an authentic, man.”
If there’s one phrase to explain Rickey, it would simply be that one — “authentic.”
Stewart’s recollection of “Rickey on Rickey” additionally sheds gentle on one thing that many individuals who didn’t know Henderson properly might need misunderstood primarily based on what they noticed when he was on the sphere.
Henderson was assured from the day Stewart met him after they have been 12 and 13 years outdated, respectively. That confidence — which some could have perceived as cockiness — didn’t simply emerge after he bought to the massive leagues.
The “snatch catch” within the outfield, the place Henderson would usually make a routine catch with a bit of additional — and within the minds of some, pointless — aptitude, was typically taken as showboating.
As was Rickey’s response to launching a few of his 297 profession homers — he would typically give a slight flip of the bat in entrance of him, choose at his jersey, contact his helmet and/or take such a large flip at first base that it appeared he is likely to be destined for the first-base dugout reasonably than the bag itself.
However for Rickey, it was all mandatory. As a result of that wasn’t for present.
That was simply Rickey being Rickey.
“That’s him,” Stewart stated. “Should you watched him enjoying soccer in highschool — which I at all times thought was his higher sport — he simply did some unbelievable issues. You may name it no matter you wish to. It’s not disrespectful to name it ‘sizzling dogging.’ It was simply unbelievable when he was enjoying soccer. It’s simply pure that it could carry over into baseball.”
As a lot because it might need appeared like he was making an attempt to placed on a present, Stewart says Henderson was not an entertainer at coronary heart. He was an eminently gifted athlete whose character manifested in his efficiency on the sphere.
“I don’t assume Rickey performed to entertain, if I’m being completely sincere,” Stewart stated. “If that’s the case, then he was ‘entertaining’ all the way in which again in Little League and Babe Ruth league and highschool soccer.
“He didn’t play to entertain. He performed to be the perfect.”
What do the Angels, Orioles, Twins and Crimson Sox have in widespread (apart from they’re all American League groups)? Henderson stole extra bases than every of these groups did within the Eighties.
“The factor about Rickey,” stated new Braves supervisor Walt Weiss, who was a teammate of Henderson’s with the A’s from 1989-92, “he was a trailblazer. He set the usual. Simply the all-around physique of labor, you simply didn’t see that again then.
“It’s like evaluating somebody to Babe Ruth. I imply, yeah, individuals have hit 50 homers and even 60 at instances, however Babe Ruth was doing it when no person did it.”
Ruth, in fact, is essentially the most transformational determine in baseball historical past in relation to altering how the sport was performed. However like Ruth, Rickey did issues nobody had dreamed of earlier than he arrived.
He was merely the perfect, taking the position of leadoff hitter and molding it into his personal picture.
It wasn’t that there have been no nice base stealers within the sport when Henderson burst onto the scene. His first season within the Majors — 1979 — coincided with Lou Brock’s closing season. Brock left the sport because the all-time steals chief, with 938.
However Brock had been in a category of his personal — the earlier report holder was born in 1866 (Billy Hamilton — no, the opposite actually quick Billy Hamilton — who stole 912 bases). And within the earlier half century previous to Henderson’s MLB debut, solely 4 others in addition to Brock had stolen greater than 500 bases — Bert Campaneris (615), Maury Wills (586), Joe Morgan (573) and Luis Aparicio (506).
Then, Rickey modified the sport. By the point he was 26, he had stolen extra bases than every of these 4. And he completed his illustrious profession with 468 extra steals than Brock.
“It’s like Michael Jordan,” Weiss stated. “When he was doing the stuff he was doing, no person was actually doing that. Later, Kobe [Bryant] comes alongside and LeBron [James] comes alongside. Whenever you put context to what Rickey was doing, it was otherworldly.”
Acuña is an elite expertise who has the potential to be a Corridor of Famer sometime. However he suffered a torn ACL in every knee and has stolen 25 bases in 144 video games since his 40-70 marketing campaign.
Shohei Ohtani is probably the best baseball expertise to ever reside, and he based the 50-50 membership in 2024. This previous season, although, he returned to a two-way position and stole 20.
Henderson led the AL or the Majors in steals in yearly of the Eighties, aside from one — he was restricted to 95 video games by harm and stole “solely” 41 bases in 1987. For the last decade, he swiped 838 luggage.
Rickey ran. And ran. And ran. However his greatness went past what numbers — or anecdotes — can convey.
Rickey, for a time, was quicker than time
When Don Mattingly first noticed Henderson up shut, he was awestruck.
“I used to be younger and I actually hadn’t seen him that a lot,” Mattingly stated of when Henderson was traded from his hometown A’s to the Yankees previous to the 1985 season. “I used to be sort of simply getting began when he bought traded over. I used to be shocked at, like, how huge he was — how bodily put collectively he was.
“I bear in mind him standing in the course of the anthem along with his arms behind his again. And I bear in mind pondering, ‘This dude is ripped.’”
Henderson bought stronger as he reached his mid-20’s, including slug to his sensational velocity.
Mattingly, the Yankees’ All-Star first baseman who can be named the AL MVP that first 12 months of Henderson’s tenure in pinstripes, hit behind Rickey within the lineup. What he noticed from the on-deck circle is as vivid for him right now because it was 40 years in the past.
“The facility was unbelievable,” Mattingly stated. “I noticed him go upper-deck in left area on the outdated Yankee Stadium. That’s a bomb. There aren’t too many guys that went up there.”
Henderson was listed at 5-foot-10, 180 kilos. Nevertheless it was all muscle. His chiseled physique helped him to not solely steal extra bases than anybody in MLB historical past (1,406), but in addition to hit extra leadoff residence runs (81) than anybody in MLB historical past.
Slightly over 4 years after Henderson made his Yankees debut, he was traded again to the A’s in the course of the 1989 season. He helped them win the World Collection that fall and he was named the AL MVP the next 12 months (9.9 bWAR, 189 OPS+).
Simply as in his Yankees days, his teammates with the A’s have been wowed by the steely power of the “Man of Steal.”
“Should you have been gonna make an NFL working again in a lab,” Weiss stated, “Rickey is strictly what he would seem like.”
However as straightforward as he made the sport look, what Rickey did wasn’t straightforward. It was grueling. And there have been days on which he wasn’t within the lineup due to the damage and tear. Again then, that was usually criticized.
“I truly had a dialog with him one time in these Oakland years,” Weiss stated. “Folks would get on him for not being within the lineup at instances when he had some leg points — smooth tissue stuff, like calves, hamstrings or a quad, that sort of factor.
“And he stated, ‘Folks don’t understand the pounding my physique takes from all these bases I steal. Nobody takes that into consideration.’”
From 1980-83, Henderson performed in 560 video games. Over that span, he tried 503 steals (not counting when the ball was fouled off or put in play). When he set the single-season steals report (130) in 1982, he tried extra steals than video games performed (172 makes an attempt in 149 video games). Nobody else in MLB historical past tried greater than 151 in a season (Brock, 1974).
Mattingly, who later turned an enormous league supervisor himself, stated that what Rickey knew in his day is one thing we take as a right right now. And it led to a enjoying profession that lasted 1 / 4 of a century.
“In right now’s sport, there’s much more discuss of restoration,” Mattingly stated. “He performed in a day when it was virtually unusual to not play damage. And I believe one thing Rickey did that was actually sensible was that he took care of himself. As a result of if his hammies weren’t proper, or there was a bit of one thing occurring, he wasn’t afraid to say, ‘Hey, I’m tight,’ and take a day.
“It most likely wasn’t the most well-liked factor at the moment. You’re presupposed to intestine it out, don’t go within the coaching room, all that. However Rickey knew he wished to play a very long time.”
Rickey took the lengthy view. He was forward of his time the way in which he was gentle years forward of his friends on the sphere. And his foresight bought him time. Because of this, he turned the one place participant since 1930 to play in 25 Main League seasons. He even led the Majors in steals (66) at age 39 in 1998.
There have been and might be others who will steal 60, 70 or even perhaps 80 bases in a season. However we’d by no means see somebody fairly like Henderson once more.
“I believe the factor we could not see once more,” Mattingly stated, “is anyone that has the longevity of Rickey.”
One of the vital enduring psychological photos we have now of Henderson includes him in the course of his patented headfirst slide.
Terry Kennedy, a four-time All-Star catcher who performed within the Majors from 1978-91, noticed his share of Rickey diving into the following base at his expense.
Kennedy later bought a glimpse of Rickey’s ingenuity when Henderson informed him a distinct sort of Rickey story.
“He informed me how he realized find out how to slide headfirst so properly,” Kennedy stated. “He requested an airline pilot how he landed the airplane.”
When Henderson first started sliding headfirst, it was as a result of he felt that sliding feet-first would end in an excessive amount of put on on his legs, notably with the quantity of basestealing he did. However his preliminary makes an attempt have been painful, leading to bruised shoulders and even laceration.
After falling asleep on a flight throughout a street journey, he was jolted awake by the crew’s airplane making a tough touchdown on a windy day in Chicago. Later, on a flight again to Oakland, the plane — with the identical pilot on the helm — made a really clean touchdown.
Little did the pilot know that his second touchdown would contribute to a Corridor of Fame baseball profession.
“Rickey requested the pilot, saying, ‘That was so clean, how did you do this?’” Kennedy stated. “He in some way transformed that into — as a substitute of form of a leap, like some guys would do the Pete Rose ‘Superman’ leap and land arduous — Rickey realized how to enter the slide a bit of gentler.”
Henderson has stated that one of many main takeaways he had from his dialogue with the pilot was that he wanted to get himself low to the bottom steadily as he went into the slide, reasonably than a la Rose. A low middle of gravity whereas working made a clean touchdown doable.
The outcome was a factor of magnificence — highly effective poetry in movement, a swish aggression harnessed to completely stability forceful utility with an clever aesthetic.
Rickey was in love with the sport
Twenty-five seasons within the huge leagues. A surefire Corridor of Famer. Extra data than you possibly can preserve monitor of.
For Rickey, that wasn’t sufficient. As a result of love is aware of no bounds.
“When he got here to me, he was in higher form than any of the younger gamers I had,” stated Invoice Madlock, who managed Henderson in 2003 and ’04, when Rickey was 44 and 45 years outdated. “In actual fact, he was in higher form than any participant I had as a hitting coach in Detroit [from 2000-01].”
After his stint as hitting coach for the Tigers, Madlock — a three-time All-Star and four-time batting champion over a 15-year MLB profession — turned the supervisor of the Newark Bears of the unbiased Atlantic League. Forward of his second season there, Henderson stated he wished to play for him.
The prior 12 months, Rickey posted a .223/.369/.352 slash line in 72 video games with the Crimson Sox. After not receiving any curiosity from Main League groups in 2003, he wouldn’t take no for a solution.
“The younger guys on the crew, that they had solely heard about Rickey,” Madlock stated. “However then after they noticed what Rickey may do, they have been in awe of him.”
In 56 video games with the Bears that 12 months, Henderson hit .339/.493/.591. That bought the eye of the Dodgers.
Dan Evans was the Dodgers’ basic supervisor on the time, and he wished what Rickey had.
“We thought that his mixture of expertise, expertise and clutch performances can be a terrific addition to our membership,” Evans stated. “And that love of the sport was evident.”
Over 30 video games with Los Angeles, Henderson struggled to a .627 OPS. However he was undeterred, returning to Newark the following 12 months and stealing 37 bases in 39 makes an attempt whereas posting an .897 OPS.
In 2005, at age 46, Rickey signed with the San Diego Surf Dawgs of the Golden League.
His supervisor? Kennedy, the one one that ever tried to throw Henderson out from behind the plate and later managed him.
Rickey was not who some thought Rickey was
Kennedy realized towards the tip of Henderson’s skilled enjoying profession that Rickey was far more than what may very well be gleaned from the tales Kennedy had heard about him.
“The notion of Rickey was not what he was,” Kennedy stated. “I don’t know if there was anyone like him. You don’t actually know till you get to satisfy him and know him.”
When Henderson joined Kennedy’s Surf Dawgs, he was 46 years outdated, occurring 47. However whereas his physique was older, he was nonetheless Rickey. And he nonetheless wished to play the sport he cherished.
He was additionally greater than prepared to bestow his knowledge upon the following technology.
“Sooner or later I requested him — I didn’t assume he would do it — however I knew these guys have been by no means gonna have this opportunity,” Kennedy stated. “I stated, ‘Can you’re taking them across the bases, beginning at first and take ’em across the bases doing the baserunning factor?’
“And he goes, ‘Oh, yeah, positive. No drawback.’ So I didn’t know what to anticipate, proper? He was so linear, and it was so good, that I used to be amazed. And the fellows on the opposite crew, they have been all on the highest step of the dugout. And I stated, ‘Come on out.’ So he talked to each groups and he spent like 45 minutes, and it was the perfect factor.”
Whereas Henderson’s intention could not have been to entertain, that didn’t imply he didn’t rise to the event. He did it all through his profession, together with when he set the all-time runs scored report by homering on Oct. 4, 2001, to eclipse Ty Cobb’s mark of two,244 (Rickey’s report of two,295 nonetheless stands).
He additionally did it when he was enjoying unbiased ball at age 47.
“We have been enjoying in Shock, Ariz.,” Kennedy stated. “And ESPN comes, and so they’re making an enormous deal about it and so they go, ‘Is Rickey gonna play?’ And I informed them he wasn’t within the lineup and wanted a day of relaxation — that if something, it could be a pinch-hit look.
“I went to Rickey and informed him they wished to get some movie of him enjoying. I stated, ‘If a state of affairs comes up and I want you for one swing, you good with that?’”
Rickey was good with that.
“So we have been tied within the seventh inning,” Kennedy stated. “He goes as much as hit, and he hits a homer. And ESPN bought it. After which I am going, ‘There it’s. That explains all of it, proper there.’”
On Could 1, 1991, Henderson and the A’s have been enjoying the Yankees on an overcast day on the Oakland Coliseum. Sitting on 938 profession steals — tied with Brock for many in MLB historical past — Henderson took his lead off second base with Harold Baines on the plate within the fourth inning.
As Yankees starter Tim Leary lifted his leg to ship the following pitch, Henderson broke for third and slid in safely along with his signature headfirst dive. He was now the all-time steals king.
Eighteen years later, when he was inducted into the Nationwide Baseball Corridor of Fame, Henderson ended his speech — which he actually went again to highschool to excellent — this manner:
“I’m now within the class of the best gamers of all time. And at this second, I’m … very, very humbled.”
Rickey Henderson is extensively thought of the best leadoff man in baseball historical past, the likes of which we could by no means see once more. There’s a treasure trove of tales that give us a glimpse of Rickey. However they don’t inform the entire story.
There may be one explicit story, nevertheless, that’s treasured to Stewart and indicative of the person whom most didn’t see.
“No person talks about this,” Stewart stated, “everyone talks in regards to the humorous tales. However Rickey, when he would get his meal cash — again within the day, we bought our meal cash in envelopes on street journeys — Rickey would by no means spend his meal cash. He would preserve the envelope and when he bought residence, he put that envelope in a drawer.
“So when his daughters got here residence with good grades on their report playing cards, he would inform them, ‘Go within the room, you understand the place the drawer is — pull an envelope out.’”
As he mirrored on Henderson on what would have been Rickey’s 67th birthday, Stewart summed him up this manner:
“Rickey was only a loyal, unbelievably form, beneficiant and loving father, son and buddy.”
Rickey’s gone. However he’ll by no means be forgotten.
