even if he did steal bases vs My Boys
Oof. Sad about Ricky. We share a first name. He was the best athlete I ever heard of named the same as me. Heck, he was the best athlete lots of people with other names ever heard of or saw, too.
Tom wrote a better article on Henderson’t stats and accolades than I could write. I’m not going to do that. Instead, I want to talk about me being a fan of The Man Of Steal and why.
First, he was a Rickey. No one I knew had that first name, much less went with the whole “Rickey” thing. Just him and me. I identified very strongly with that. He was not ashamed to be Rickey. That was incredibly cool.
Then it was his confidence. He knew what he could do. He knew what the other guy could do. He was confident he was better and that was that because he could back it up. Henderson was so fast and had such good judgement that the pitcher knew he was stealing and could do nothing about it. Not that they didn’t try. I’ve seen that guy dive back into 1st so many times he wore a groove in the dirt doing it and had about 20lbs of clay on his shirt. Then steal the base anyways. He attempted a steal on 240 different catchers and I am sure each and every one of them hated his guts, too.
Not me. I loved watching him, even against the Jays. Oddly enough, I don’t think he ever stole a base vs the Expos. If anyone knows how many teams he stole bases from I’d love to see that list.
Best thing about Henderson was that he was a complete ballplayer. Rickey wasn’t a one trick pony. As we all know, he could slug with the best of them. He’d swagger up to the plate, get into an exaggerated crouch, lean way over the plate as though daring the pitcher to hit him, give it a little kick step, and slash hard at the ball. He made excellent contact and had the strength to pull it over the wall or flick the ball away, depending on the pitch. Then he’d take off for 1st, low to the ground, ready to dive if he had to.
It was a privilege to see him play and see him in his prime.
Rest in peace, Man of Steal. Best Rickey I ever saw.