Rickey Henderson dead at age 65

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In the Twins World Series era, the A's were our rival.

I always remember thinking, please get Rickey out. Canseco and McGuire were coming up shortly.
 


I never knew his birth name was "Rickey Nelson" Henley.
 




The active leader in stolen bases is Starling Marte.

With 354.

If he’d stolen another 50 a year, he’d still be 200 behind Rickey Henderson.

RIP to Rickey, a true baseball legend

Jayson Stark (@jaysonst.bsky.social)

The active leader in stolen bases is Starling Marte. With 354. If he’d stolen another 50 a year, he’d still be 200 behind Rickey Henderson. RIP to Rickey, a true baseball legend
bsky.app bsky.app
 

Rickey had wild stats.
Walked more times unintentionally than anyone. (Must have had great knowledge of the strike zone, because you certainly don't want to walk him.)
Scored the most runs ever. (Name of the game.)
Hit more home runs to lead off a game than anyone.
Stole 3 or more bases in a game 71 times, including 4 steals 19 times. Had 5 steals once. (Did it without a hit and did score 4 runs that game.)
Think how many fastballs his teammates got to sit on because of him.
 



OK - true story. I'm living in the Cities in the early 80's and I go to a Twins-Oakland game with some of my buddies. this was back when you could bring a thermos with you for games at the old Met. so my group mixed up a gallon thermos of mixed drinks (and we mixed 'em strong) and brought that with us.

we're sitting in the LF bleachers. Rickey is in front of us. Every time he runs for a fly ball, his hat flies off. So we (being a little inebriated by this point) started yelling "Your head's too big for your hat" at him. after a while, he turned back, looked at us and flipped us the bird.

in retrospect, probably not the best move. but at the time, we thought it was funny.

and that is my Rickey Henderson story.

join us again soon for another episode of "Tales of an Alcoholic."
 

fan of Ray Williams said:
Rickey had wild stats.
Walked more times unintentionally than anyone. (Must have had great knowledge of the strike zone, because you certainly don't want to walk him.)
Scored the most runs ever. (Name of the game.)
Hit more home runs to lead off a game than anyone.
Stole 3 or more bases in a game 71 times, including 4 steals 19 times. Had 5 steals once. (Did it without a hit and did score 4 runs that game.)
Think how many fastballs his teammates got to sit on because of him.
Click to expand...

The Career Most Runs Scored Record I think is amazingly underrated.

In my life when the Home Run (Aaron & Bonds), Hit (Rose), Strikeout (Ryan & Carlton) and even Stolen Base (Henderson himself) Records were broken, those were deemed as massive accomplishments that got widespread media attention.

Henderson breaking the Runs Scored record barely even registered. He passed Ty Cobb (2,246) in 2001 while playing for the Padres. He slid into Home after hitting a HR to left field 10/4/2001

In fairness there was a lot going on the in world, less than a month after 9-11.

October 4, 2001: Rickey Henderson slides into record book with 2,245th career run scored to pass Ty Cobb – Society for American Baseball Research

sabr.org sabr.org

Looking at the All Time list, everyone that is in the T30 made it to Cooperstown, will when they are eligible or aren't going to make it because of gambling or embracing the juice/clear.

Stretch it to T75 and the only ones not likely to get in are Johnny Damon, Kenny Lofton, scofflaws and 5 guys that played mostly in the 1800s.

Carlos Beltran is on the list #52 and he got 57% on his 2nd Year on the Ballot (up from 46%).

en.wikipedia.org

List of Major League Baseball career runs scored leaders - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org en.wikipedia.org

Anyway, back to Rickey, I was glad this noteworthy accomplishment was mentioned often on the MLB Network coverage of his passing.
 
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