Larger than life, better than anyone
There are so many great stories to tell about Rickey Henderson. Many of them mention “cockiness” or “showboating” right off the bat, which is a putdown Rickey heard many times during his career. Who cares? I say to that, but also, if anyone earned the right to strut as much as he wanted, surely it was Rickey Henderson.
Some quick stats:
- MLB records for career stolen bases, runs, unintentional walks, and leadoff home runs
- Gold Glove winner
- AL MVP
- He was a power hitter who walked a ton and had speed to spare on the basepaths (what a combo)
- Single-season MLB record of 130 stolen bases
- Stole 100 or more bases in a season three times
- Third player to hit a home run in four different decades (And the company he keeps! Ted Williams and Willie McCovey were first and second)
- Two World Series championships
- Oakland Athletics all-time stolen base leader
- Former New York Yankees all-time stolen base leader (Derek Jeter eventually broke his record, but it took him 1700 additional games to best Rickey)
- First-ballot Hall of Famer
So why shouldn’t Rickey be cocky if he wanted to be; he earned it!
But there are also enough stories to counterbalance that “cocky” image—ones that demonstrate his generosity, humility, or thoughtfulness—that I’ve wondered if maybe Rickey was ahead of his time in creating a role he slipped in and out of. Maybe there was Rickey Henderson, and then also “Rickey Henderson,” who referred to himself in the third person. Some of the stories are pretty comical, too, so maybe we shouldn’t be so quick to assume that he took himself seriously.
Like the time he called up Harold Reynolds, the 1987 stolen base leader, after the season. Rickey had dealt with injuries all year and didn’t win the title that year—the only time that happened during a stretch between 1980 and 1991. With no preamble other than to announce himself by name, he said that Reynolds should be ashamed of himself for winning the title with such a low number, left no doubt that in a normal year, Rickey himself would’ve stolen that many by the All Star break, and then ended the call. Reynolds seems to get a kick out of telling it; are we sure Rickey also hasn’t been laughing about it all along? I mean, in the annals of prank calls, that’s a classic right there.
I love this man.
Writers who have painted him as a showboater make him sound like a puffed-up cartoon braggart, but for me, the hint of mystery over his true intentions only adds to the legend. And he was certainly legendary, even rising to the level of superhero: the Man of Steal. Remember those muscular thighs. And the way he triumphantly yanked second base out of the ground and raised it over his head when he broke Lou Brock’s stolen base record in 1991. That’s archetypal stuff.
Photo by Brad Mangin/Sports Illustrated via Getty Images
Every superhero needs an origin story. One of the things I remember most fondly about this over-the-top, larger-than-life man is that his origin story was simply that he wanted to impress his mother. I can’t find where I learned this story, but I’ve cherished it for years; maybe it was batted around Oakland when I lived there. I’m paraphrasing here, but it goes like this: it was a requirement that her son was going to work hard at everything he did, and she let Rickey know that. When Rickey came home from baseball practice, his mother didn’t consider that he had worked very hard unless his uniform was dirty. The dirtier it was, the harder he must have worked. Quick-thinking Rickey decided that the fastest, most sure-fire way to get his uniform dirty was to slide head-first into second base, so he began to do that right away in a game, to sort of check off the box. He made that a habit, and a legend was born.
Rickey played for many teams. There were nine in the major leagues, several more in the minors, a couple in Mexico and Puerto Rico, and then a couple more in independent leagues. He briefly played for the Red Sox near the very end of his MLB career, and we can see his DNA in the 2024 Red Sox team, and presumably moving forward. It’s a fun game, the running game, and I’m glad the Red Sox have embraced some of Rickey’s style.
Photo by Jim Davis/The Boston Globe via Getty Images
Many think Rickey’s record of 1,406 stolen bases won’t be broken. We know that records are made to be broken, and most of them do seem to fall, one way or another, given enough time. But this one, in particular, seems especially otherworldly.
To put this in perspective, in 2024, MLB’s stolen base leader was Elly De La Cruz, with 67. Here are the 2024 season totals from our own Red Sox speedsters:
- Jarren Duran: 34
- David Hamilton: 33
- Ceddanne Rafaela: 19
- Connor Wong: 8
And these came in the new era of encouraging more steals, with larger bags and limited pick-offs. Do you imagine that even De La Cruz or Duran could come close to 130 in a season? I’d like to say yes, but truthfully, I need to say no.
I loved Rickey, particularly during his time with the Oakland A’s. I lived in Oakland during college and saw him plenty of times, especially when the Red Sox came to town. I was not an A’s fan; I was a Rickey fan. I have written about Rickey several times in this Red Sox column, and I’m not promising this will be the last time, either. I’ve written that the closest I’ve ever come to catching a foul ball was one of Rickey’s zingers, a line drive high up on the right field line at the Oakland Coliseum. It came within a couple of seats of mine, but instead of chasing it I let someone else get it, and I’ve regretted it ever since. If I say it’s one of my life’s regrets, please take that as a measure of my deep admiration for Rickey, not as some shallow or unconsidered statement. Because I’ve thought about that ball. A lot. I don’t need to look at it on a shelf to think about Rickey, but it sure would be nice.
Marcus Thompson II wrote a beautiful tribute that fleshes out the legend of Rickey Henderson. Adding to Rickey’s origin story, Thompson II points out that his birth is also a Christmas story because he was born in the back of a car on the way to the hospital. A manger-less baby on Christmas Day. (Rickey himself had a different take on it, saying that he was always in a hurry, even then—and there’s that prankster I was talking about earlier.) But Thompson II also calls attention to what Rickey brought to Oakland. Thompson II lays the context for Oakland’s Black pride and the entry of many Black people into the middle class during Rickey’s lifetime, and then how much of this was eroded by the drug trade in the ’80s. That is the Oakland I recognize from my years there, a city that almost always took a backseat to big-brother San Francisco across the bay. As a Black man and native son of Oakland, like Rickey, even a fellow graduate from Rickey’s high school, Thompson II tells Oakland’s story, and Rickey’s place in it, in a way I can’t. But that’s the Oakland I felt as I moved through the streets, back when they called it the “murder capital” and there was a shooting in the apartment right below mine. Rickey lifted up Oakland and Black pride in the area from some pretty serious depths at that point in time, the same way he lifted up year-end totals and team statistics.
I write this with great sadness. Not only is 65 too young to die in the 21st century, but somehow death feels like it’s getting closer with this one. That well-worn saying, that Father Time is undefeated, is true, of course. But how can a physically gifted superhero have wasted away in a hospital bed from pneumonia? These are the contradictions of life, even for superheroes who are vulnerable underneath their powers.
I hate to write this also because of all that Oakland has endured recently. Rickey was raised in Oakland and played there—four times, for fourteen years—for its major league team. Of course, Oakland doesn’t have a team anymore, but it’s not for lack of trying or lack of fans.
Thank you Rickey, for bringing a championship to your hometown, to a franchise that has since lost its way. Thank you for bringing yourself—all of yourself—to the game for so many years, and I thank your mom too.