It’s nearly too much to bear.
It’s one thing for Oakland to lose its last big-league team this year. The reality of that situation hasn’t fully hit yet, but sadly, it’s hardly a new experience for the East Bay city.
But for Oakland to lose its greatest son — the man who perfectly encapsulated the excellence and swagger of The Town — as well?
That’s just downright unfair.
Rickey Henderson, the Man of Steal, who appropriately told the world after setting baseball’s stolen base record that he was “the greatest of all time”, died on Saturday. He was 65 years old.
The Baseball Hall of Famer scored more runs and swiped more bags than anyone else in the history of the sport, playing 25 seasons after breaking in with the A’s in 1979. he won two World Series championships, including the 1989 championship with the A’s.
Yes, Henderson was The Man, and he’d tell you all about it, too.
And it was that inextinguishable charm and confidence that stand as Henderson’s legacy. The incredible stats don’t tell the story of Rickey Henderson. No, it was the character of Rickey—the one that forced the man to refer to himself in the third person—that made him beloved.
There are plenty of players with great stats (albeit not as great as Rickey’s), but few players who could capture your attention with his style both on and off the field.
Quirky doesn’t even begin to describe the man who slid into home plate after hitting a home run to break baseball’s all-time runs record, or who missed games with frostbite from falling asleep wearing ice-backs, or who declared before steal attempts that “Rickey’s gotta go.”
Henderson wasn’t always beloved. With his braggadocio leading the way anywhere he went, he was hardly a celebrated figure in baseball during the 1980s. His demands for pay raises of, at first, $500,000 to keep up with baseball’s ever-increasing income left fans and media alike to label him greedy. My, how times have changed.
And the outfielder’s relentless competitiveness made him anything but revered by opponents. Rickey came to win, and that’s a quote from the man himself. As such, one of the greatest dozen baseball players ever remained underappreciated, even as his on-field greatness was undeniable. Perhaps that’s why he spent much of his career bouncing from team to team.
Luckily, the baseball world saw the error of its ways — they realized that what Henderson provided the game was everything it needed — and so much of what it lacks today — and celebrated him as such. In a sport tainted by scandal, Henderson was as authentic as anyone who ever played the game. He maximized his natural gifts — the ones forged from age 10 onwards in the crucible of athletic excellence that was Oakland.
And while Henderson played for nine teams over 25 years, he always seemed to find his way back home. The A’s traded Henderson twice, but four different times, Henderson used his free agency to return to Oakland.
“They have a very colorful uniform,” Henderson claimed to have said, explaining why he kept returning to the A’s.
Fitting for a colorful man, no?
Even more fitting: “If my uniform doesn’t get dirty, I haven’t done anything in a baseball game.”
Now, that’s the kind of player worth the price of admission.
Henderson wasn’t even close to six feet tall—when we first met, he joked that I, nearly a foot taller than him, should sit down to conduct the interview with him (we were standing in a hallway with no chairs)—but he was, indeed, a giant on the field and something approaching a tall tale off it.
Everyone, from coast to coast, has a Rickey Henderson story, and we’re all better off for it.
My favorite: After signing a new, record-setting deal with the A’s in 1989, Henderson received a $1 million signing bonus, but at the end of the season, as the A’s checked their books, they found there was a million-dollar surplus.
Yes, Rickey had framed the $1 million check and hung it on the wall.
But lest you get the wrong idea about Henderson.
The man had a big ego, no doubt, and he cared about money — that’s for sure — but he seemingly always had time to talk to a fan or a kid, even if he had to explain to the latter who he was in recent years. He was a man of the people, and he had nothing but love for “his people” in Oakland. I think that’s really why he kept coming back, even as the A’s and, at times, the fans, never truly valued him as much as they should.
Hall of Fame catcher Mike Piazza’s favorite Henderson story tells the true story of Rickey.
Teams that make the playoffs in baseball receive a share of the postseason revenue; typically, the players divvy the money. As Piazza, a teammate of Henderson with the Mets, recalled in his autobiography:
“[He] was the most generous guy I ever played with, and whenever the discussion came around to what we should give one of the fringe people — whether it was a minor leaguer who came up for a few days or the parking lot attendant — Rickey would shout out “Full Share!” We’d argue for a while, and he’d say, “F*** that! You can change somebody’s life.”
Luckily, that love was reciprocated. His death might be tragic, but at least he received the love, admiration, and respect he so deserved while he was alive.
How incredible must you be to bounce around as Henderson did — to play for the flippin’ Yankees, as he did — and to be considered Mr. Oakland?
Whatever that threshold was, Henderson easily surpassed it, just like he did with baseball’s stolen-base record. (Henderson, who broke the record at age 32, wound up with 50 percent more steals than the previous record holder, Lou Brock.)
Perhaps that’s what makes his death hit so hard today. The man who seemed like he could play forever — played in the independent leagues after his big-league career was over and he was closer to 50 than 40 — is gone well before his time.
And with him goes perhaps the single most extraordinary vessel of Oakland baseball history.
It might sound strange, but I believe this: Oakland baseball didn’t die when the A’s left for Sacramento, Las Vegas, or wherever that ownership group thinks they’re ending up.
But with apologies to the living greats of the A’s it might have died on Saturday when Henderson passed. From Bushrod Park to Oakland Tech to the Coliseum — the field of which was justly named after Henderson — the man’s legacy stands as more substantial than the team whose (colorful) uniform he graced.
Sadly, Rickey’s had to go.
But 30-plus years after breaking the stolen base record, Henderson’s words still ring true:
He remains “The greatest of all time.”