Rickey Henderson was a remarkable player, and his loss is a shock to the baseball world, and to me since he was just a few days shy of his 66th birthday and I’m just a few months shy of my 65th.
Even though as a Giants fan, I paid scant attention to the American League, it was impossible to avoid recognizing his greatness as a player who could hit for average and power while drawing an incredible number of walks and then destroying opponents on the base paths.
Because he three times stole a 100 bases in the early 1980s, when the media had lost its perspective of the stolen base and was treating it like baseball’s new secret weapon in an era of artificial turf stadiums, the focus on Henderson was all about his steals.
Bill James once trashed a baseball announcer for saying the difference between Henderson and the Kansas City Royals singles-hitting base-stealing leadoff man Willie Wilson who drew 25 walks a year and Henderson, who drew 90, was that Henderson had more power.
“That’s like saying the difference between Dolly Parton and Twiggy is that Dolly is two inches taller,” James said.
For me, though the story I remember the most has to do with Yutaka Fukumoto. The Pacific League’s Hankyu Braves leadoff man surpassed MLB stolen-base leader Lou Brock as major league baseball’s career leader on June 3, 1983.
When Henderson was approaching his own career total of 1,065, Fukumoto flew to the States and on June 16, 1993, he threw out the ceremonial first pitch at the Oakland Colosseum and presented Henderson with a pair of golden spikes as a show of respect. When Henderson swiped second for hid 1,066th, Henderson dislodged the base and had it given to Fukumoto.
