My favorite A's player, Rickey Henderson, has died at 65. Oakland product like friend and teammate Stew aka Dave Stewart. Played mostly football in high school but his mother worried he could get injured and convinced him to focus on baseball. Sometimes Mom knows best. Greatest leadoff man. Unstoppable base thief. Home run hitter. Hall of famer. World Series champ. Eccentric. And good guy. I still have hanging on my wall photo I shot from bleachers with telephoto lens when he broke all time stolen base record. He signed it for me. He was at event at Coliseum last season and looked fine. Face showing some lines but trim and fit. I can't say rest in peace to someone known for constant motion. Eternal sunshine and natural grass fields. And endless supply of catchers to make fools of outrunning the baseball.
fantastic post. agreed. one of my favorite players of all time with griffey jr, the big hurt and greg maddox. Farewell to one of the greats. May he never stop running in the clouds.
Looks like we got merged. Report he died of pneumonia. Which explains why he looked good last summer. Not cancer or some other long drawn out illness. Only thing that could catch him. A virus.
Rickey met his wife Pamela when they were in high school and they were together the rest of his life. Their second child was born during A's season. At that time norm was still women had babies alone while men stayed with the team. Rickey took a game to be there for the birth and then took the next day. Some sportswriters denounced him as irresponsible. Many male fans thought of him as a wimp or cuck or something. Women thought he was right.
I'm not a big baseball fan (ever since I got beaned twice in a little league game) but if you were building a team, is there any doubt at all who you'd want as the lead-off hitter?
Natural left hander who batted right and threw left. When he started playing baseball in high school, all the boys batted right so he figured that's how it was done. In minor leagues he thought about learning to switch hit but since he was batting .350 coaches didn't want to mess with his swing. Only 70 players in Major League history batted right and threw left, only 9 had any kind of career. Only one in Hall of Fame. Rickey was such a unique player and personality every fan has Rickey stories. I was at a game in Oakland, tied late, Rickey on third. A hit scores him, so would medium to long fly ball. Batter hit popup that barely cleared infield. Fans groan. No one in the stadium thought Rickey would try to score on pop fly, except Rickey. When he tagged and sprinted home, everyone was so startled it took fielder a second to figure it out. A second was all he needed. Safe at home. I was at an event at Oakland Convention Center and saw him going into men's room. Felt that slight disconnect when we realized superstars are mortal. Rickey Henderson has to take a leak just like the rest of us. He had a tendency to be toungle tanged, or in his words, "me and the English language don't always get along". He hired a speech coach for his Hall of Fame induction and hit it out of the park.
Rickey was truly a national treasure. I remember him playing a random spring training game at PGE park when he played for the Mariners. Me and a buddy skipped school and went. I was amazed at how gracious he was with the fans about signing autographs and talking to everyone that approached. Kinda crazy he passed so young. A couple months ago I went down a rabbit hole of watching HOF speeches and he was one of them. A great trivia is naming all the teams Henderson played for. I know he had like 3 or 4 stints with the A’s
