Hall of Famer Rickey Henderson, baseball's stolen base king, has died at 65

Original Publication Date December 21, 2024 - 3:26 PM

OAKLAND, Calif. (AP) — Hall of Famer Rickey Henderson, the brash speedster who shattered stolen base records and redefined baseball's leadoff position, has died. He was 65.

Henderson died on Friday. The Athletics said Saturday they were “shocked and heartbroken by his passing," but did not specify a cause of death.

Known as baseball's “Man of Steal,” Henderson had a lengthy list of accolades and accomplishments over his nomadic 25-year career — an MVP, 10 All-Star selections, two World Series titles and a Gold Glove award.

“Rickey was simply the best player I ever played with. He could change the outcome of a game in so many ways," said Don Mattingly, Henderson's teammate with the Yankees from 1985-89. "It puts a smile on my face just thinking about him. I will miss my friend.”

It was stealing bases where Henderson made his name and dominated the sport like no other.

He broke through with 100 steals in his first full season in the majors in 1980, topping Ty Cobb's AL single-season record with Billy Martin's “Billy Ball” Oakland Athletics. He barely slowed playing for nine franchises over the next two decades. He broke Lou Brock's single-season record of 118 by stealing 130 bases in 1982 and led the league in steals for seven straight seasons and 12 overall.

Henderson surpassed Brock's career record when he stole his 939th base on May 1, 1991, for Oakland, and famously pulled third base out of the ground and showed it off to the adoring crowd before giving a speech that he capped by saying: “Lou Brock was a great base stealer, but today I am the greatest of all time.”

Henderson finished his career with 1,406 steals. His 468-steal edge over Brock matches the margin between Brock and Jimmy Rollins, who is in 46th place with 470.

“He’s the greatest leadoff hitter of all time, and I’m not sure there’s a close second,” former A's executive Billy Beane said.

Henderson said in September he would have had many more steals in his career and in the record-breaking 1982 season if rules introduced in 2023 to limit pickoff throws and increase the size of bases had overlapped with his career.

“If I was playing today, I would get 162, right now, without a doubt," he said. "Because if they had had that rule, you can only throw over there twice, you know how many times they would be throwing over there twice and they’d be going, ‘Ah, (shoot), can y’all send him to third? Give him two bases and send him to third.’ That would be me.”

He even predicted how he could still be stealing more bases than the big leaguers more than 20 years post-retirement: "If they’re stealing 40-50 bases right now I’d lead the league.”

Henderson’s accomplishment that record-breaking day in 1991 was slightly overshadowed that night when Nolan Ryan threw his record seventh career no-hitter. Henderson already had been Ryan’s 5,000th career strikeout victim, which led him to say, “If you haven’t been struck out by Nolan Ryan, you’re nobody.”

That was clearly not the case for Henderson. He is also the career leader in runs scored with 2,295 and in leadoff home runs with 81, ranks second to Barry Bonds with 2,190 walks and is fourth in games played (3,081) and plate appearances (13,346). He finished his career with 3,055 hits over 25 seasons spent with Oakland, the New York Yankees, Toronto, San Diego, Anaheim, the New York Mets, Seattle, Boston and the Los Angeles Dodgers.

He fittingly finished his career with the Dodgers at age 44 in 2003 by scoring a run in his final play on a major league field.

Henderson is the third prominent baseball Hall of Famer with ties to the Bay Area who died this year, following the deaths in June of former Giants stars Willie Mays and Orlando Cepeda.

Henderson was the rare position player who batted from the right side and threw with his left arm — but then again, everything about Henderson was unique.

He batted out of an extreme crouch, making for a tighter strike zone that contributed to his high walk total. He struck fear in opponents with his aggressive leads off first, his fingers twitching between his legs inside his batting gloves as he eyed the pitcher and the next base.

Born on Christmas Day in 1958 in Chicago in the back of his parents' Chevy, Henderson grew up in Oakland and developed into a star athlete. He played baseball, basketball and football at Oakland Tech High School and was a highly sought-after football recruit who could have played tailback at Southern California, where he could have played eventually with football Hall of Famer Marcus Allen.

But Henderson said his mother loved baseball and thought it would be the safer career in a decision that proved to be prescient.

“She didn’t want her baby to get hurt,” Henderson told the San Francisco Chronicle in 2019. “I was mad, but she was smart. Overall, with the career longevity and the success I had, she made the right decision. Some of the players in football now have short careers and they can barely move around when they’re done.”

Henderson was selected in the fourth round of the 1976 amateur draft by the hometown A's and made his big league debut in 1979 with two hits — and, of course, one stolen base.

He became a star for the A's the following season and remained in Oakland through 1984 before being traded to the New York Yankees. He was part of some talented teams in New York that never made the postseason. In 1985, he scored 146 runs in 143 games to go along with a league-leading 80 steals and 24 homers, helping start the "80-20 club" that season with Cincinnati's Eric Davis.

He was traded back to Oakland in June 1989, leading to his greatest successes. He topped the AL that season with 113 runs, 126 walks and 77 steals, was named the ALCS MVP and helped lead the A's to the World Series title in the Bay Bridge series against the Giants.

Henderson then won the AL MVP the following season for Oakland before the A's lost the World Series to Cincinnati.

He set the career steals record in 1991 and then was traded two years later to Toronto, where he won his second World Series. He spent the final decade of his career bouncing around the majors and still led the AL with 66 steals and 118 walks at age 39 with Oakland in 1998.

“When you’re old and grey, sitting around with your buds talking about your career in baseball, you are going to talk about Rickey," said Ron Guidry, another of Henderson's former Yankees teammates. "He was just amazing to watch. There were great outfielders. There were great base stealers. There were great home run hitters. Rickey was a combination of all of those players. He did things out there on the field that the rest of us dreamed of.”

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AP Baseball Writer Janie McCauley contributed to this report.

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