Why won't it let me put a link in the title? I wanted "Rickey Henderson" to be a link to the B-R page . . . did something change?

Why won't it let me put a link in the title?

You can only do that in the Newsblog.

-- MWE

That kind of sucks . . . :-)

Juan will vote for Rickey.

Ridiculously overqualified, but has any other first-ballot HOF player even come close to switching teams 10 times in a decade as Rickey did from 1993-2003? After they list all the franchises on his plaque, will they have any space for his career summary, or will it read on the bottom "See next plaque"??

For 13 years, he didn't receive a single MVP vote.....what a loser ;)

One of the more recent games I've been to live was a Dodger game in 2003, and Rickey played. It was interesting to see how agitated the other pitcher got the one time he was on base - that wasn't just a runner on first, that was the one and only Rickey.

Of course, as the year wore on, pitchers realized that they could just throw strikes, and the 2003 version of Rickey couldn't do much to hurt them. By then, it was time for him to go.

Rickey Henderson will never believe he cannot still play in the majors. He believed it in 2003. He believed it in 2004. I heard a recent interview with him and even in that interview he hinted he thought he could still play.

ranking in AL in on-base percentage, starting 1980:
3-3-3-2-3-4-x-x-5-3-1-6-2-3-8-10

then NL in 1996, and he ranks 5
and 7 in 1999

led the AL in SB every year from 1980-91, except 1987 (5th)

just for fun, led again in 1998

He's pretty good, might make my ballot

I think hes like 14th on my ballot. :)

Ridiculously overqualified

Seconded.

For 13 years, he didn't receive a single MVP vote.....what a loser

Sadly someone with a vote for the HoF is out there thinking that exact thought only without the sarcasm.

Henderson was moderately durable during the 1980s and more durable for his career than I remember (one of Time's distortions).
He played in 25 seasons and played more than 90% of team games seven times.

1980-81-82, Oakland (1982 was his run for a record, which he shattered with finally 130 steals)
1986, New York
1989, New York and Oakland (150 games. I credit 90% play without looking at the transaction data or daily standings.)
1996, San Diego
1998, Oakland

--
During 1981-82 Rickey was caught stealing a little more than one time in four, 186-64 .744.
During the rest of his career he was caught a little more than one time in six, 1220-271 .818.

I was in attendance at Qualcomm Stadium when Rickey collected his 2500th hit. I'm pretty sure he got caught stealing during the very next batter's PA.

I was in attendance at Qualcomm Stadium when Rickey collected his 2500th hit. I'm pretty sure he got caught stealing during the very next batter's PA.

Good memory:
http://www.baseball-reference.com/boxes/SDN/SDN199707050.shtml

R --3 6 61% R Henderson Single to RF (Fly Ball to Short CF-RF); Hernandez Scores
O 1-- 68% Q Veras Henderson Caught Stealing (PO) 2B (P-1B-SS)

looks like he got picked off too.

ranking in AL in on-base percentage, starting 1980:
3-3-3-2-3-4-x-x-5-3-1-6-2-3-8-10

The 1st "x" is 1986, when he finished 22nd.
The 2nd is 1987, when he was hurt. His OBP was 3rd, had he qualified.

Those two "x"s and the 4 and the 5 around them create the opening for claiming that there might once have been a moment in which Tim Raines was a better player than Rickey. Of course there's not much question about who had the better career, and Raines finished 5th in our recent LF ranking ballot, so dragging Raines into it is hardly an insult. (Stray comments on that ballot leave little doubt that Rickey, if included, would be 3rd, behind Williams and Musial, but ahead of Delahanty, Yastrzemski, Raines, Burkett, and Simmons.)

In the '88 Baseball Abstract (covering through the '87 season), James ranked the best players in baseball and had Raines ahead of Henderson.

A while back I scanned through some of the usual suspects to see who had stolen the most bases in a month. If I remember correctly, the most I found were Henderson's 34 steals in Sept 1980, though on closer inspection I see now that 3 of those were actually in October. He was also caught 7 times. I've often thought about going through all of those attempts to try to determine just how many runs they were worth. (Not just a flat linear weights calculation, but a more granular one based on the base/out situation for each attempt.) He was doing some crazy stuff, like getting caught at 3rd with 2 outs when down by a few runs. WPA might be useful for analyzing this. In July '83 he stole 33 bases in 34 attempts. How many runs was that worth?

Thanks, plim.

I couldn't remember the year, so I wasn't entirely sure I had the stadium name right. I almost wrote "at The Murph."

While I am at it, in hopes that more people will do the same, I humbly submit a list of notable in-game events I've witnessed while in attendance:

1) My friends treated me an M's game for my birthday (22 April) during the '93 season. We stayed for the whole thing.

2) As mentioned above, Rickey's 2500th hit.

3) Ryan Howard breaking Schmidt's single-season team record for HR. The game was at RFK.

4) Randy Johnson's first career save. (All my Mariner memories are in the Kingdome.) I can see me being wrong on this one, so I'll offer some detail, so maybe someone can confirm or correct. I just remember how Big Unit was trying to look menacing by taking forevvvvvvvver to get to the mound with his slow, tough-guy stride while that really popular Stone Temple Pilots song blared over the PA. Myabe it was just a relief appearance? Somebody help me out on this.

5) Eric Byrnes getting traded from the O's to the Rockies. This was at OPaCY during a game versus CWS (pretty sure this was the year the White Sox won it all). He didn't come back out to play defense (don't remember the inning), and they announced his trade on the scoreboard.

6) Randy Johnson striking out 14 A's at the Kingdome and losing. He couldn't get a call to save his life in...I think it was the 8th or 9th. He'd been getting punchouts all day, then ended up walking a bunch of guys. I am nearly certain he walked in at least one run. I should look this up, because I am sure it was in the Kingdome against the A's, and I am sure it was a really high K total for the day. I can't remember if he finished the game, but I remember wondering what the record for Most-K-In-A-Loss (or something) was, and if RJ had broken it that day.

Again, I submitted #20 in the earnest hopes that others would follow suit. I know there must be a whole lotta "games attended" among us -- hell, there are people here who attend more games in a season than I have in my entire life -- and I'd love to read the "I was there when" stories from you people.

Dan Fox has EqBRR for every year of Henderson's career except 1999. But it is based on run expectancy, not win expectancy, so it wouldn't capture the difference between a stolen base attempt when the game is tied and one where the teams are separated by two runs.

I prefer to mention one of the more dubious scenes I've wittnessed rather than milestones.

May 15, 1996, CHW 20 MIL 8. County Stadium. Announced attendance was 8,812. In a game delayed by fog twice, managers and umpires tested the fog thickness by hitting fungoes into the outfield to find out whether or not the game should be resumed. That was pretty amusing. Meanwhile Mouton replaced Tony Phillips in LF in the bottom of the 6th, with the score 17-5, and it was later learned that Phillips went out behind the LF bleachers after being removed (don't remember if he was in street clothes, or uniform and got into a short fist fight with a fan from Racine. Most recounts suggest that both the fan and Phillips landed a blow or two before it was broken up. I did not see the fight.

Since this is a Rickey thread, I was in attendance when he stole second late in a blowout game while a member of the Padres, which led Davey Lopes to go wild calling it bush league, etc., and during a NYY/Brewers game (I want to say Opening Day '88) when a fan threw a rock in the direction of Rickey as he headed to the team bus, which ultimately forced the Brewers to change the location of the visiting bus from outside Gate X of County Stadium to gate near the LF bleachers, where of course Tony Phillips would have easier access to fighting fans.

I should probably ask for a new thread, but I'm not sure where to put it.

I saw Rickey play twice - once in Oakland and once when he was with the Red Sox in Minnesota. My wife gives me crap about the Oakland game because I took her to an A's game on our honeymoon. She complains that she had to sit through a game she didn't care about in Oakland Coliseum and I reply "but we got to see Rickey Henderson play!"

Pretty sure it was http://www.baseball-reference.com/boxes/OAK/OAK199808210.shtml or the following day.

The first (of two) MLB games I have attended. I was vacationing with the family in New York in 1992 and we went to see the Yanks play the A's. Rickey hit a homer in the first AB of the game which fell a couple of rows from where I was sitting, or so I remember.

The first baseball game I went to was in 1993 at Yankee stadium: Rickey's first game with the Blue Jays. His stay with the Blue Jays was pretty undistinguished, but I remember being pretty excited to see him.

Since this is a Rickey thread, I was in attendance when he stole second late in a blowout game while a member of the Padres, which led Davey Lopes to go wild calling it bush league, etc.

From Wikipedia:
In 2001, Lopes was the target of controversy following statements he made regarding stolen-base king Rickey Henderson. Managing a game for the Milwaukee Brewers, Lopes was enraged that Henderson had stolen second base in the seventh inning while Henderson's Padres held a seven-run lead. Lopes believed that this violated an unwritten rule against "showing up" the opposing team. Lopes made the following statement: "He was going on his ass. We were going to drill him." [1] [2] Henderson then withdrew from the game as a result of Lopes' threat to have him beaned. Lopes was suspended for two games for a violation of league rules. The Elias Sports Bureau subsequently documented that during his own playing career, Lopes had stolen seven bases while his teams were leading the game by seven or more runs.

Special Just-for-Fun Request: When filling out your ballot, please note where you would rank each half of Rickey's career. Imagine the first half of Rickey's career was played by a fellow named "Rich Henderson" and the second by a one "Henderson Rickey".

He never was feared like Jim Rice, so it's a no here.

In reply to #20:

I was there when Randy Johnson set the record for the most strikeouts in a relief appearance. The game had been suspended the night before when lightning had hit one of the light towers. They resumed it the next afternoon in the second inning. Randy started the day, but technically was pitching in relief since somebody else had pitched the first inning the night before. He was mowing them down. Phil Nevin swung at one pitch so hard that he actually fell down and landed on his butt. I'm pretty sure the record was 20. I don't remember if Rickey played in that game or not, but he was there as a member of the Padres. I tried to get his autograph before the game but no go.

My favorite Rickey moments have to do with situations where he wasn't actually playing:

1) The Olerud story (Rickey and John had been teammates with the Mets in 1999. In Spring Training 2000, now with the Mariners, Rickey Henderson tells Olerud "You remind me of this dude I played with last year").

2) His casual catch as a fan of a foul ball at Phoneco Park in SF.

Crossposting from the 2009 Ballot Thread

Rickey Henderson – Alongside his inner-circle greatness,

Rickey wasn’t afraid to be boastful: “Lou Brock was the symbol of great base stealing. But today, I'm the greatest of all time. Thank you.”

Rickey is an illeist too. Late in his career, while Rickey was playing for the San Diego Padres, he had this passage to share with general manager Kevin Towers, “"Kevin, this is Rickey. Calling on behalf of Rickey. Rickey wants to play baseball."

The Olerud story is great but sadly not true.

Rickey would sign for kids earlier in his career. My younger brother was at a game in Oakland on the Fourth of July in the early 80s. For the post-game fireworks, Rickey watched the fireworks from the stands, and signed autographs for the kids. I have no idea why he went into the stands instead of staying on the field.

Is Rickey top 20 (MLB) all time, or does he miss the cut?

Ruth, Williams, Bonds, Mays, Wagner, Cobb, Speaker, Musial, Aaron, Schmidt, Hornsby, Morgan, Mantle, Collins, Gehrig...is that it for players clearly better than him? You have candidates like Brett, Mathews, F-Rob, Ott, Foxx - how many, if any of them, would be placed above Rickey?

Oh, also Vaughan and Ripken to get some middle infielders in that mix of possibilities. And I totally neglected to mention catchers, so I think you'd probably put Bench and Berra above him. Is a ranking around 18th to 20th place ever about right?

Just among post-1893 MLB position players, I have him at #19 (Ruth, Williams, Bonds, Wagner, Cobb, Mays, Speaker, Musial, Hornsby, Aaron, Collins, Mantle, Lajoie, Gehrig, Morgan, Schmidt, Ott, A-Rod, Rickey). Ripken might surpass him once I get all the new defensive stats inputted (although they are quite friendly to Henderson as well--why is he not known more for his terrific fielding, which was a tremendous component of his value?). Frank Robinson is short. With catchers, it's totally subjective--obviously they're not close on raw value to their teams. Adding in Negro League position players, he's clearly behind Gibson and just about tied with Charleston. Lloyd is tough to evaluate since we don't have MLE's, but if the group took him over Ripken then he's probably above Rickey as well. I don't think the group would take any 19th C guys like Anson over Henderson. And then if you work in pitchers, obviously there's a bunch more.

I have Rickey 29th - that includes 8 pitchers and 4 Negro Leaguers.

Post integration:

Ted Williams (sorta counts)
Willie Mays
Stan Musial (sorta)
Henry Aaron
Mike Schmidt
Mickey Mantle
Joe Morgan
Tom Seaver
Warren Spahn
Frank Robinson
Rickey!
Bench
Berra
Mathews
Ripken

I don't know whether it's the first half or the second half but one of those halves of Rickey! struck me as being very similar to Bobby Bonds.

Interesting tidbit I did not know: He never played 162 games in any single season.
Even in his MVP season, he missed 26 games (a week in July, a week in August and then scattered games here and there).

Was he injury prone? Or were they simply giving him a rest every so often (until he became old and required more days off)?

1990 April 29, Fenway Park
(On the 15th anniversary of the evacuation of Saigon,)
This baseball game was a classic in at least three respects.

1. Rickey Henderson led off the game with a walk, advanced on a grounder, and scored the only run on a single. Rickey was already on first when our party first glimpsed the action but even before entering the ballpark, probably more than five minutes earlier, I had "warned Clemens" not to walk him. (Later I joked with only moderate exaggeration that by arriving late we missed the main action, that base on balls.)

2. Dave Stewart beat Roger Clemens 1-0.

3. Mother Nature provided all-too-common April at Fenway. Grey and raw, halfway between fog and drizzle.

--
Furthermore,
- that was my only lifetime visit to an owner's box (minority owner Heywood Sullivan, next door to JRYawkey's majority box
- that was Rickey's career year. Or it may be more accurate to call the 1.5 seasons and two playoffs following his return to Oakland "Rickey's career 16 months".
- Stewart advanced to W-L 6-0 in his next start four days later, beating Clemens again. (August 14-15 they missed each other by one day, Clemens winning 2-0 and Stewart winning 6-2 in 10 inns.) They matched up twice more in playoff Games One and Four, Stewart winning both times after eight innings pitched, one run. Those four wins, two in April/May and two in October, contributed massively to the reputations of Stewart and Clemens in Boston.

I recall an article on Rickey in the late 1980s that talked about how banged up he always was from the constant sliding on steal attempts and dives back into first. I don't think that he was necessarily injury-prone, he just played a style of ball more physically demanding than most.

I distinctly remember the article had a picture of Rickey sitting in a whirlpool, and I also remember at least two other articles from much later that also had pictures of him in a whirlpool. I guess Rickey liked whirlpools.

The last of these articles was IIRC from the Globe during Rickey's Red Sox tenure, in which he described his eating style as never cleaning the plate, something like, "Keep picking, keep hungry." There were also a couple of articles about Julio Franco that went on and on about the smallness of his meals. That gives some insight in one road to baseball longevity.

Henderson played "every day" during 1979-1982.
Sports Illustrated featured a story mainly about the chest slide, iirc. Probably during that early time when he was challenging records, and breaking the season record.
See #13 for some playing time details. In his 21 subsequent seasons he played 90% of team games four times.

Now I have checked those 1989 details.
Rickey Henderson 1989
played 65 of 68 games for New York,
missed the trade day, June 21,
played 85 of 91 games for Oakland.

why is he not known more for his terrific fielding, which was a tremendous component of his value?

He was the best I've ever seen getting to the groundball down the line in left and spin and throw a dart to second. Also me and my friends would always tap the glove on our shoulder and do that little catch the ball while waving the glove showoff catch he used to do. That move was the total opposite of Soriano's lame hop.

One of the good things about Bonds not playing this past year was that he wasn't able to catch Rickey as the all-time runs leader.

He passed Cobb in runs at the end of 2001, I think, so does that mean I saw him set the record for runs in this game when he scored the winning run vs the Yankees in the 11th. I remember seeing him score from behind the plate, although I'll have to check my stubs.

Rickey set the record with his 2247th run which was his second to last run scored in 2001. He finished with 2295 for his career and had 47 in his last two years. So he was at 2248 after 2001. I was at the game where he tied the record with 2246.

Back then, Cobb's record was supposed to be 2245, so everyone at the game thought Rickey had set the record with his 2246th run, rather than tying it. Does anyone know when Cobb's 2246th run was found? It looks like it was in 1912 because there are some older lists that show him with 119 runs that year, but BBREF has him with 120 now.

He hit a homerun to left field in the third inning. It was a Thursday. I had just started law school and skipped Property so I could go to the day game. People were shocked I would skip class for a baseball game, but I told them that you don't get to see an 80 year old record get broken very often.
I ended up sitting next to 2 guys from LA that skipped work and drove down to SD to see the game.

I was also there on April 25, 2001, when Rickey set the walks record (since broken). A good year for Rickey.

In one of his mid-80's Abstracts, Bill James introduced the gimmick stat "Secondary Average", which was (TB-H+BB+SB)/AB; Rickey Henderson seems to have been the main inspiration for that. Even though its analytic deficiencies are obvious, I've always had a soft spot for this, in part because it can be computed quickly and estimated in one's head fairly readily by comparing the numerator - "secondary bases" - to hits. At the time James wrote the article, Babe Ruth's position with respect to this seemed unassailable. This included that Ruth was the only player with 5000 career secondary bases. There are now three players with 5000 secondary bases, and Ruth ranks third. Henderson actually held the lead in career secondary bases for a few days in his final 2003 season, as he inched past Ruth just before Bonds came flying past both of them.

I have Rickey 29th - that includes 8 pitchers and 4 Negro Leaguers.

I have Rickey in the 26-30 range.

Among MLB position players I have Rickey 16th or so.

48. OCF Posted: November 18, 2008 at 03:35 PM (#3011724)
In one of his mid-80's Abstracts, Bill James introduced the gimmick stat "Secondary Average", which was (TB-H+BB+SB)/AB; Rickey Henderson seems to have been the main inspiration for that.

probably you are right.
That was too early for Craig Biggio and for promotion of Biggio the measure would include HBP and GDP.

However, to include HBP and GDP would promote Henderson and Mike Schmidt relative to Tim Raines (slightly) and Wade Boggs and Pedro Guerrero and Eddie Murray (especially) --six players whom Bill James did generally promote. Perhaps his motives were impure?

It was the 1986 Abstract, after the 1985 season (which was, of course, spectacular for Henderson). James was also trying to make the point that there were those whom no one even thought as good players who were in fact very good. His particular example was Gary Redus, who had just hit .252 as a half-time player for Cincinnati and was probably available in trade cheap. (He was traded that winter for John Denny, who was good enough at the time that it doesn't look all that cheap.)

The point was that Redus had a secondary average of .537, which was the highest in baseball, higher even than Henderson's .528. Bbref sees it as Redus having an OPS+ of 115 along with a 48-12 SB-CS record. Of course, Rickey had a much higher BA at .314, for an OPS+ of 157 and 80-10 SB-CS as a full-time CF.

The real reason he left HBP and GDP off of the secondary average calculation was that they weren't printed in such readily available sources as USA Today, and he wanted something that any of his readers would be able to easily compute for themselves. (James was very much an "open source" author, especially in the 80's.)