R.I.P. Rickey Henderson

Last week we noted how significant Rocky Colavito was in Cleveland. Rickey was like that for Oakland. His family moved to Oakland when he was 10. The As were his first major league team, and he played for them during four separate stretches in his career. He retired in Oakland and died there.

Rickey was already a star right out of high school. In 1977, playing minor league ball with Modesto at age 18, he batted .345 and stole 95 bases. In his first full year in the bigs, he batted .303 (.420 OBP) and stole 100 bases. During three decades in the game, from age 17 to age 46, he established himself as the greatest leadoff hitter in history. He reached base 5200 times in the bigs, and 1000 more times at other levels of organized baseball. And he had enough power to hit nearly 300 homers in MLB! Rickey’s total of 1400 stolen bases in the majors is almost 500 higher than the second-place guy, and is one of the games’ most unassailable modern records. He’s also the all-time leader in runs scored.

Bill James penned the ultimate tribute to Rickey when he pointed out that if you split Rickey’s career in half down the middle, both halves would be Hall of Famers. For example, if you divide his stolen base total in half, each half stole more bases than Joe Morgan, who was a great base stealer.