You may not be able to throw at football like a certain player, but you wanted to be like them. You may have never been able to get to the height of the sport that they played, but that didn't mean you weren't going to imitate them. Imitate them on a number of different occasions. There are a lot of athletes for me, but there are certain athletes that define your childhood, and for me, one of those athletes. One of them was Ricky Henderson. He passed away at the
age of sixty five over the weekend. Greatest leadoff hitter of all time, and I don't think it's close. And he's also the greatest base dealer of all time, and I know it's not close. Four hundred and six career stolen bases never be touched. One hundred and thirty steals back in nineteen eighty two is a single season record will never be matched. Twelve times he led the major leagues in stolen bases. That will not be surpassed. He ended his career scoring two two hundred and ninety five runs.
He ended his career with two one hundred and ninety walks. He belted two hundred and ninety seven homers that I don't think gets nearly enough. Pub He hit eighty one homers to lead off a game, which again will not be duplicated, and his one hundred eleven career war wins above replacement won eleven point one to be exact third most ever by a player in the last twenty five years, only surpassed by Barry Bonds and a rod which has a little bit of taint to it, you know what
I mean. He collected over three thousand hits, really impressive and was a first ballot Hall of Famer. On the Hall of Fame, he was listed on ninety four point eight percent of the ballots in two thousand and nine.
There's actually more than one person out there. Some idiot chose not to vote for Ricky Henderson, some moron, somebody who claims to know baseball, somebody who thinks they follow baseball, somebody who feels like they have a larger impact on the game than the guy who did all those accomplishments that I just told you about, in addition to other things that I'll soon inform you of, felt like, hmm,
I don't think he's a Hall of Famer. Somebody actually took that stance somebody had a ballot in front of him and saw Ricky Henderson, and before you vote, at least you said, you have a pretty good idea of what this guy's all about. You don't want to dive into the ten time All Star. That's fine. How about the fact that this dude was a two time World Series Champion. How about the fact that this dude was
a League MVP. How about this fact that this dude had all those numbers I've already told you about war career, steals, home runs, hits. What was it about his resume that somebody more than one felt like, can't do it, can't put him on that ballot today? I digress. Yes, he was boisterous, Yes he was self promo. Yes, I don't think there's another athlete who's used themself in the third person like Ricky Henderson. But he was a special talent,
There's no doubt about it. As soon as he came out of Oakland Tech High School, which by the way, also gave us Kurt Flood of Major League Baseball, Joe Morgan of Major League Baseball, Veda Pinson of Major League Baseball, Frank Robinson of Major League Baseball, Dave Stewart of Major League Baseball, Lloyd Mosby of Major League Baseball, Gary Pettis of Major League Baseball. All from that one high school. It gave you seven other impactful Major League Baseball players.
I might be pushing it a little bit with Lloyd Mosby, but you get he still played Toronto Detroit played quite a bit. On top of that, there were two NBA the players who came out of Oakland Tech High School, Paul Silas, Seattle primarily and turned out to be a pretty good coach. Oh and Bill Russell, one of the best players of all time. That high school, Oakland Tech High School in Oakland, California, gave you all those players. Was Ricky Henderson the best? No, it was not. Frank Robinson.
Bill Russell, you would argue, are the two best athletes coming out at least of those names that I've mentioned. Sometimes there are better high school players than pros. I mean, sometimes guys in high school were as good, if not better than the guys who ended up being elite professionals. Don't have very often, but once in a while you'll find that. But Ricky Henderson is a piece of my childhood that was really important because oftentimes when we were kids,
we would imitate baseball players when we go. We would ride our bikes, put the glove through the handlebars or glove through the bat the handle of the bat, and bag our lunch and head up to the local field and play baseball. Every day in the summer, right field is out, sometimes left field was out, just so you could hit the other way. That's what we did. And we would bring the helmets we used to get for
five bucks at Tiger Stadium. As you go out there and while everybody was collecting every single Tiger helmet, we would collect every helmet in baseball and we would put them on a bench and we would pick one up, and then we had to imitate the player we thought exemplified that franchise, that team, and for the Oakland A's a lot of times, not always, because sometimes it was Reggie Jackson, sometimes it was Joe Rudy, sometimes it was Joe Morgan, sometimes it was Gene ten, sometimes it was
Sal Bando, anytime it was Oakland. Eventually somebody would say Ricky Henderson, right, he was after that crew. Of course that crew was even before Ricky Henderson, but I mean all those guys so many great players who played for that franchise, and Ricky Henderson was among, if not the best to play for that franchise. Now, again, he played in a different era of the guys I just mentioned, but I'm talking about as you know, childhood. That was part of it. And I feel bad for people who
didn't get a chance to watch him play. Now the games weren't on every single day like they are these days. And yes, you've had a chance to go back and check things out on YouTube perhaps, and that would be my hope, right, But he truly was one of the
greatest players of all time. All the things that he's done on on the field of play warrant all the attention that he's gotten, but you can't necessarily appreciate it unless you either a watched him in person or b followed his career as it was taking place and spent fourteen years in Oakland in the Hall of Fame career that spanned a lot of other teams of course, with the Yankees and the Blue Jays and a number of other teams a Red Sox for a period of time
as well. But Ricky Henderson, at the age of sixty five, gone away too soon.