Rickey Henderson would have turned 66 on Christmas Day.
The operative phrases right here being would have.
As a substitute, one of many best gamers in MLB historical past died Friday after a bout with pneumonia. His passing was merely yet another merciless blow to Oakland baseball followers, who misplaced their Athletics when the season ended and now have misplaced arguably the most effective participant in franchise historical past.
So as an alternative of musing about Juan Soto signing for a zillion {dollars} with the Mets or a number of different guys signing for some huge cash with different groups, let’s attempt to use a few of these 609 phrases to do justice to a profession in contrast to every other.
First, there have been the stolen bases, all 1,406 of them. Nobody’s stolen extra and nobody ever will, except Rob Manfred outlaws pickoff throws (and don’t give Rob any concepts; he’s liable to undertake this earlier than subsequent 12 months).
Or to place it one other approach, Henderson stole at the least 30 bases in 21 completely different seasons. Nobody in MLB historical past stole at the least 10 bases in 21 completely different seasons. So there’s one other file he owns that’s unlikely to vanish any time quickly.
Had been this all he did to place his stamp on the file books, it could have been sufficient to earn him a spot in Cooperstown. As you may need guessed from the third paragraph of this missive, it was not all he did.
Nobody scored extra runs than Henderson’s 2,295. That’s one other file that needs to be within the annals lengthy after Santa reads this along with his milk and cookies. He paced the American League in runs in 5 completely different seasons, together with an otherworldly 146 in 1985 when he had Don Mattingly and Dave Winfield knocking him in whereas carrying Yankee pinstripes.
The secret in baseball is scoring runs, and Rickey, being Rickey, did it higher than anybody. That clearly means getting on base, and he did that greater than 5,000 instances. His 2,190 walks are second all-time, and his 3,055 hits are twenty seventh in MLB historical past.
Nor was he some slap hitter simply hoping to bloop one over second. Henderson cracked 297 homers, together with 28 in 1990. In case you may match a strike in his small zone, it higher not be too good, or it could disappear over a fence.
As for his protection? Properly, he earned a Gold Glove in 1981, led AL left fielders in putouts 4 instances, and had the second-most putouts of any left fielder in MLB historical past. Merely put, wherever you set him, Henderson was going to do one thing to win a recreation.
And we haven’t even gotten into all of the well-known tales right here as a result of we may fill this website a number of instances over. However the one which tickles my fancy most got here close to the top of the 2001 season, when he was chasing milestones in the identical Padres uniform that Tony Gwynn was carrying for the ultimate instances in his Corridor of Fame profession.
Henderson claimed the all-time runs file in type, lining a homer into the left discipline seats in opposition to the Dodgers. To commemorate the event, he slid feet-first into the plate, a gesture which may result in chin music for some however was greeted with grins and chuckles because it was Rickey.
Three days later, in Gwynn’s farewell recreation, Henderson doinked his 3,000th profession hit on the best discipline line.
It’s been mentioned {that a} true authentic can’t be copied, regardless of how laborious one tries.
Nobody gave it a lot of an effort right here.
Rickey was Rickey. And a sport was rattling glad he was for 25 years.