Rickey Henderson, the greatest leadoff hitter and base-stealer in Major League Baseball history, died Saturday. His blazing speed, discerning eye, and unusual home run power complemented an irrepressible swagger that propelled him from Oakland’s sandlots to the Baseball Hall of Fame. He was 65.
With a fearless, flamboyant style of play that thrilled some players and fans thirsting for theatrical energy in a sport known for its staidness and irritated others who believed the iconoclastic approach to the game disrespected old traditions, Henderson broke boundaries and set countless records over a 25-year career with nine teams.
Henderson shattered the all-time stolen-base record with 1,406, 468 more than the St. Louis Cardinals great Lou Brock, who held the record of 938 for a dozen years before Henderson surpassed him in 1991.
Henderson holds the records for most stolen bases in a single season (130 in 1982), most times leading the league in steals (12), and most consecutive years leading the league in steals (seven).
Henderson became the oldest player in history to lead the American League in steals with 66 when he was 39 years old and playing for Oakland in 1998.
Following his final season in 2003, Henderson had 3,055 hits and left the game with all-time records in steals, runs scored (2,295), and walks (2,190), which are now held by Barry Bonds (2,558).
He was named to ten All-Star games and finished his career with 111.1 Wins Above Replacement, the third-highest total in the last half-century, trailing only Bonds and Alex Rodriguez, both of whom used performance-enhancing drugs.
Henderson was inducted into the National Baseball Hall of Fame on the first ballot in 2009, with 94.8% of electors voting for him.
“I’ve been saying for years that Rickey wasn’t just great. “That doesn’t say enough for me,” Hall of Famer Reggie Jackson once stated. “He’s one of the top ten or twelve players of all time. That’s how talented Rickey was.
On Saturday, MLB commissioner Rob Manfred issued an official statement announcing Henderson’s death, describing the Hall of Famer as “the gold standard of base-stealing and leadoff hitting.”
“Rickey exemplified speed, power, and entertainment while setting the tone at the top of the lineup. “When we considered new rules for the game in recent years, we kept Rickey Henderson in mind,” Manfred said, referring to recent rule changes that have encouraged more stolen base attempts.
“Rickey commanded universal respect, admiration, and awe among sports fans. On behalf of Major League Baseball, I extend my heartfelt condolences to Rickey’s family, friends, and former teammates, A’s fans, and all baseball fans.”
His death has sparked widespread reaction.
Dave Winfield, a Hall of Famer, wrote on Instagram:
“I still can’t believe I’ve lost one of my favorite teammates and best friends, Rickey Henderson. Rest in peace.
Barbara Lee, a Bay Area congresswoman, spoke on X.
“Rickey Henderson was a baseball legend and Oakland icon. He not only elevated the A’s to new heights with his dazzling performance, but he was also one of many symbols of Black excellence in our great city. While he will be deeply missed, his legacy will last forever. “May he rest peacefully.”
Henderson won World Series championships with Oakland in 1989 and Toronto in 1993 during his 25-year career, which included four separate stints with his hometown A’s.
Henderson, the American League MVP for Oakland in 1990, redefined the role of the leadoff hitter by injecting unprecedented offensive power into the traditional leadoff role of reaching base. He hit 297 home runs, including a major league record 81 to start a game.
For all of the records, Henderson’s most indelible mark on the game may have been his boisterous on-field presence, celebrating home runs with a hop, a jersey tug, and, when the mood struck, one of the slowest trots in baseball.
He claimed to have channeled boxing legend Muhammad Ali through his play. When Henderson stole his 939th base on May 1, 1991, to break Brock’s all-time record — nine years after breaking Brock’s single-season record — he plucked the second-base bag out of the ground, held it high above his head, and declared, in an on-field celebration, “I am the greatest of all time.”
His snatch catch, which involved ripping the ball out of the air before it landed in his glove and slapping his hip in one motion, made fielding appear like sleight of hand, which irritated baseball purists. He called the play on the final out of Mike Warren’s 1983 no-hitter for Oakland against the Chicago White Sox.
Henderson believed his style was predetermined. Rickey Nelson Henley was born on Christmas Day 1958 in a Chicago snowstorm and named after 1950s teen idol Ricky Nelson.
According to family legend, his mother, Bobbie, went into labor before entering the hospital, and nurses delivered him from the car. When his father arrived at the hospital, frantic and late, demanding to see his wife, nurses told him to calm down.
“The boy is already in the backseat.” Over the years, Henderson would tell the story as proof of his destiny to become baseball’s greatest base stealer. “I was born fast,” he would say.
Rickey was the fourth of Bobbie’s five sons. When he was three, she left Chicago and relocated the family to her mother’s farm in Pine Bluff, Arkansas.
Bobbie Earl joined the second Black migration in 1969, moving his family from Pine Bluff to Oakland. Bobbie met Paul Henderson in Oakland and gave birth to two daughters.
Henderson went to Oakland Technical High School and joined a dynastic legacy of Oakland talent that included baseball greats Joe Morgan, Curt Flood, Vada Pinson, and Frank Robinson, as well as NBA greats Bill Russell and Paul Silas.
Henderson, along with Dave Stewart, Lloyd Moseby, Gary Pettis, and Rudy May, was a member of Oakland’s second generation of prep athletes to play professionally.
When Henderson began his senior year at Oakland Tech, he met Pamela Palmer, a freshman who kept track and football statistics. The two dated and remained together for the next 50 years, legally marrying in 1991. They would have two girls.
Henderson preferred football to baseball, but his mother persuaded him to play baseball because she believed his body could not withstand the physical contact of the NCAA and NFL. The A’s drafted Henderson in the fourth round of the 1976 draft.
Three years later, in June 1979, he made his major-league debut for Oakland as a 20-year-old, a bright spot in a team in the midst of a massive rebuild after Oakland’s World Series dynasties from 1971 to 1975 under former owner Charles O. Finley.
Henderson’s dynamism was on full display from the start, but he really arrived in his first full season in 1980, when Billy Martin was named manager. Unleashed by Martin, Henderson broke Ty Cobb’s 65-year-old American League stolen-base record of 96 by stealing 100 bases in 126 attempts.
The following year, during the strike-shortened 1981 season, the A’s — nicknamed Billyball for Martin’s aggressive baserunning style — made the playoffs for the first time in six years, but were defeated by the Yankees in the American League Championship Series.
Henderson was one of the game’s great characters, in the mold of baseball greats Satchel Paige and Yogi Berra, with a proclivity to refer to himself in the third person and to be the center of often absurd stories bordering on the apocryphal.
Stories about Henderson were as legendary as his play, including the true story of him framing a million-dollar bonus check and hanging it on his wall without first cashing it.
Henderson frequently sneered at baseball conventions and did whatever he wanted, making him a legend among younger baseball fans and players.
Henderson, on the other hand, represented a new generation of players in the new world of free agency and the millions of dollars now available to players. Unlike previous generations, Henderson was not afraid to demand the high salaries he believed his play deserved.
After six years in Oakland, including record-breaking seasons and several high-profile contract battles, Henderson was traded to the New York Yankees in December 1984, where he brought his unique brand of showmanship to a team that lacked it after Reggie Jackson’s departure.
Henderson was traded back to Oakland in 1989, and he led a powerhouse A’s team to consecutive pennants in 1989 and 1990, including a World Series title in 1989, sweeping San Francisco in the Bay Bridge Series, which was delayed by the Loma Prieta earthquake during Game 3 for ten days.
Henderson led the A’s to another playoff appearance in 1992, but they were defeated in the AL Championship Series by eventual champions Toronto after six games.
For all of his flamboyance and hilarity, Henderson was one of the greatest players of all time. Henderson’s best season was with the Yankees in 1985, when he led the league with 146 runs and 80 stolen bases, hit.314/.419/.516 with 24 home runs, and finished third in the AL MVP voting.
Henderson continued to produce, with his on-base percentage consistently hovering around.400, a level usually reserved for Hall of Famers. Henderson finished his career at.401.
When he returned to Oakland in 1989, his signature performance in the 1989 ALCS against the Blue Jays was one of the most devastating blows to an opponent in playoff history.
The following year, Henderson tied his career high with 28 home runs, stole 65 bases, and hit.325/.439/.577. The A’s sent him out again in 1993, this time to Toronto at the age of 34.
He won his second championship that October, standing on second base for one of the greatest moments in baseball history, Joe Carter’s World Series-winning three-run home run off Philadelphia closer Mitch Williams.
Henderson crisscrossed baseball for the final ten seasons of his career, returning to the A’s twice more, the San Diego Padres twice, the Anaheim Angels, New York Mets, Seattle Mariners, Boston Red Sox, and, finally, the Los Angeles Dodgers in 2003.
Part of his aura came from his physical appearance. In the 1980s, with the Yankees, he won the team’s competition for the lowest body fat, finishing at 2.9%. Years later, at 40, Henderson resembled a man half his age.
He had never lifted weights. He would do push-ups and sit-ups every night, flaunting his abs for all to see. In 1999, he batted.315 and reached base more than 42% of the time for the New York Mets.
He played his final game for the Dodgers on September 19, 2003, at the age of 44 years and 268 days, and his stolen base total is still more than 1,000 ahead of the current active leader.
True to his reputation as an ageless showman, Henderson never officially retired from baseball; teams simply stopped calling. According to Pamela Henderson, Rickey believed that even in his early 60s, he could still play if another team gave him a chance.
“We would sit there over breakfast, and he would watch the TV,” she once stated. “And he would see how much today’s players were making — and he would look at their stats and say, ‘I can do that.'”
