Rickey Henderson

Rickey Nelson Henley Henderson (December 25, 1958 – December 20, 2024), nicknamed "Man of Steal", was an American professional baseball left fielder who played 25 seasons in Major League Baseball (MLB) for nine teams from 1979 to 2003, including four separate tenures with his original team, the Oakland Athletics. He is widely regarded as baseball's greatest leadoff hitter and baserunner. He holds MLB records for career stolen bases, runs, unintentional walks, and leadoff home runs. At the time of his last major league game in 2003, the 10-time American League (AL) All-Star ranked among the sport's top 100 all-time home run hitters and was its all-time leader in walks. In 2009, he was inducted to the Baseball Hall of Fame in his first year of eligibility.

Henderson holds the single-season record for stolen bases (130 in 1982) and is the only player in AL history to steal 100 bases in a season, having done so three times (in 1980, 1982, and 1983). His 1,406 career steals is nearly 50% higher than the previous record of 938 by Lou Brock. Henderson is the all-time stolen base leader for the Oakland Athletics and previously held the New York Yankees' franchise record from 1988 to 2011. He was among the league's top ten base stealers in 21 different seasons.

Henderson was named the AL's Most Valuable Player (MVP) in 1990, and he was twice the lead-off hitter for World Series champions: the 1989 Oakland Athletics and the 1993 Toronto Blue Jays. A 12-time stolen base champion, Henderson led the league in runs five times. His 25-season career elevated him to the top ten in several other categories, including career at-bats, games, and outfield putouts and total chances. His high on-base percentage, power hitting, and stolen base and run totals made him one of the most dominant and innovative players of all time. He was further known for his passion for playing baseball and a buoyant, eccentric, and quotable personality that both perplexed and entertained fans. Once asked if he thought Henderson was a future Hall of Famer, statistician Bill James replied, "If you could split him in two, you'd have two Hall of Famers."

Early life

Rickey Nelson Henley Henderson was born on December 25, 1958, in Chicago, Illinois in the back seat of an Oldsmobile on the way to the hospital. Henderson later joked, "I was already fast. I couldn't wait." The son of John L. Henley and Bobbie Henley, he was named Rickey Nelson Henley, after singer-actor Ricky Nelson. When he was two years old, his father moved to Oakland, California. Rickey lived with his grandmother in Pine Bluff, Arkansas, from when he was two until he was seven, when he migrated to Oakland with his family. His father died in an automobile accident 10 years after leaving home. His mother married Paul Henderson in Rickey Henley's junior year of high school and the family adopted the Henderson surname.

As a child in Oakland, Henderson learned to bat right-handed although he was a naturally left-handed thrower—a rare combination for baseball players, especially non-pitchers. Through the 2008 season, only 57 position players are known to have batted right and thrown left in the Major Leagues. Henderson is by far the most successful (and the only one inducted into the Hall of Fame). Henderson later said, "All my friends were right-handed and swung from the right side, so I thought that's the way it was supposed to be done."

In 1976, Henderson graduated from Oakland Technical High School in Oakland, California, where he played baseball, basketball, and football and was an All-American running back with two 1,000-yard rushing seasons. He also ran track, but did not stay with the team as the schedule conflicted with baseball. Henderson received over a dozen scholarship offers to play football. Despite a childhood dream to play for the Oakland Raiders, he turned down the scholarships on the advice of his mother, who argued that football players had shorter careers.

Professional career

Draft and minor leagues

Henderson was drafted by the Oakland Athletics in the fourth round of the 1976 Major League Baseball draft. For the first season of his minor league career he was with the Boise A's of the Northwest League. In 46 games, he batted .336 and hit three home runs and two triples. Henderson spent the following season with the Modesto A's, where he batted .345 in 134 games during a record-setting season. Henderson, along with Darrell Woodard, nearly broke the league record for team stolen bases. The Modesto A's finished the season with 357 stolen bases, just shy of the league record of 370. While Woodard tied the single-season player record with 90 stolen bases, Henderson beat the record by stealing 95 bases, and was awarded the Sundial Trophy, given to the Modesto A's Most Valuable Player.

Henderson spent the 1978 season with the Jersey City A's of the Eastern League. After the minor league season ended, he played the 1978–1979 winter season for the Navojoa Mayos of the Mexican Pacific League. He played in six games for the team, which won its first championship. In 1979, Henderson started the season with the Ogden A's of the Pacific Coast League. In 71 games for Ogden, he had a batting average of .309 and stole 44 bases.

Oakland Athletics (1979–1984)

Henderson made his major league debut with Oakland on June 24, 1979, getting two hits in four at-bats, along with a stolen base. He batted .274 with 33 stolen bases in 89 games. In 1980, Henderson became the third modern-era player to steal 100 bases in a season (Maury Wills stole 104 in 1962, and Lou Brock stole 118 in 1974). His 100 steals broke Eddie Collins's franchise record of 81 in 1910 with the Philadelphia Athletics and set a new American League (AL) record, surpassing Ty Cobb's 96 in 1915. He also batted .303, had 179 hits (tied for ninth in AL), scored 111 runs (fourth in AL), drew 117 walks (second in AL), had a .420 on-base percentage (third in AL), and led the AL by reaching base 301 times.

That winter, Henderson played in the Puerto Rican Professional Baseball League; his 42 stolen bases broke that league's record as well.

Henderson was an MVP candidate a year later, in a season shortened by the 1981 players' strike. He hit .319, fourth in the AL, and led the league in hits (135), runs (89), and steals (56). Henderson was also third in on-base percentage (.408), tied for second in triples (7), fourth in walks (64), eighth in total bases (185), and second in times reaching base (201). In so doing, he became the emblematic figure of Oakland manager Billy Martin's aggressive "Billy Ball" philosophy, which received much media attention. Finishing second to the Milwaukee Brewers' Rollie Fingers in the MVP voting, Henderson earned his only Gold Glove Award in fielding that season. He later became known for his showboat "snatch catches", in which he would flick his glove out at incoming fly balls, then whip his arm behind his back after making the catch.

In 1982, Henderson broke Lou Brock's modern major league single season record by stealing 130 bases, a total which has not been approached since. He stole 84 bases by the All-Star break; no player has stolen as many as 84 bases in an entire season since 1988, when Henderson himself stole 93. He also led the AL in walks (116) and was fourth in runs (119) and third in on-base percentage (.398).

Inspired by Dodger leadoff hitter Rudy Law, Henderson adopted an exaggerated crouch as his batting stance, which reduced his strike zone without sacrificing much power. Sportswriter Jim Murray described Henderson's strike zone as being "smaller than Hitler's heart". In 1982, he described his approach to Sports Illustrated:

I found that if I squatted down real low at the plate ... I could see the ball better. I also knew it threw the pitcher off. I found that I could put my weight on my back foot and still turn my hips on the swing. I'm down so low I don't have much of a strike zone. Sometimes, walking so much even gets me mad. Last year Ed Ott of the Angels got so frustrated because the umpire was calling balls that would've been strikes on anybody else that he stood up and shouted at me, "Stand up and hit like a man." I guess I do that to people.

Regarding Henderson's 1982 season, the mid-1980s book The Hidden Game of Baseball looked at such statistics as 0.78 expected runs with a runner on first and no outs, 1.07 expected runs with runner on second and no outs, and only 0.25 expected runs with no one on and one out. The authors concluded that with Henderson's 130 stolen bases he contributed 22.2 runs to the A's offense. By being caught stealing 42 times, he cost his team 20.6 runs. Therefore, the authors concluded, the net effect of his running activity was merely 1.6 extra runs for the season. A later analysis determined his net contribution was 5.3 runs for the season.

In 1983, he led the AL in stolen bases (108) and walks (103) while finishing fourth in runs scored (105). He was also second in on-base percentage (.414), tied for ninth in triples (7), and fifth in times on base, reaching 257 times.

In 1984, Henderson hit 16 home runs while leading the league in stolen bases (66) and finishing second in runs scored (113) and third in on-base-percentage (.399). After the season, he was traded to the New York Yankees along with Bert Bradley for five players: Tim Birtsas, Jay Howell, Stan Javier, Eric Plunk, and José Rijo.