Here is a great Rickey story, courtesy of Joe Posnanski:
My favorite Rickey Henderson story of the many hundreds happened when he came back to Oakland and was looking to assure his new manager, Tony La Russa, that he would be a team player. Up to that point, Rickey ran whenever he wanted to run, he had a perpetual green light, but he asked to be shown the signs and promised to follow them. So they showed him the steal sign, the hit-and-run sign, the bunt sign. And they told him that when a coach swiped his arms, that took off all signs.
Not long after, Henderson was on first, and the coach swiped his arms, signaling to Henderson that he was to stay. Rickey stole second anyway, and came around to score. The next time he reached first, the coach again swiped his arms, again signaling Henderson to stay. Rickey stole second again.
La Russa furiously cornered Henderson in the dugout and asked him why he wasn’t following the signs. Henderson looked puzzled.
“You said if he swipes his arms, that means take off sign,’” Henderson said.
La Russa nodded.
“Well, he swiped his arms,” Rickey said. “And Rickey took off.”
While playing for the Padres in 1996, Rickey was the last to board the team bus. As a veteran, he had expected someone to leave him his own row, but there wasn't a full one open.
"No seats for Rickey?," Henderson said, standing in the front of the bus. "Rickey don't get no seat? Ain't nobody got a seat for Rickey?"
"Just tell one of the kids to move," Brad Ausmus said. "You've got tenure."
Great player, lucky to have been in Bay Area during his prime. Did not know he referred to himself in the 3rd person. Perhaps Ricky was the inspiration for Seinfeld's Jimmy?
Bill James famously said of Rickey, "If you could split him in two, you'd have two Hall of Famers."
In elementary school we'd have to prepare and deliver a speech every February and every year the subject of my speech was Rickey Henderson. His "autobiography" was the first book I read all the way through.
I modeled my style of play after him. Low-stance, steal every chance I could. Eventually my coaches realized I couldn't see the damn ball and it would be best for the team if I stopped swinging until the count had two strikes. From 12-14 this was a brilliant strategy because pitchers couldn't hit the strike zone and catchers couldn't throw out anyone speedy stealing second base.
I was the least skilled player on the team but, as I kept telling everyone (I knew my Sabermetrics - I had Out of the Park Baseball!), I was easily the most valuable. "Just like Rickey."
I shed a tear today for my lost youth. "A boy's will is the wind's will, and the thoughts of youth are long, long thoughts."
Rose scored a huge number of runs. He didn't steal but he taught himself in his 30s to hit doubles, leading the league five times in doubles after he was 32. So he got to second base a lot that way.
Rose had a poor caught-stealing to successful-stealing rate. I believe 70 % is the percentage success rate you need to make stealing a base worth while.
Agreed, but he was not a base stealer. Henderson had a huge number of steals but also had an average success rate (I think he holds the record for most times caught stealing in a season!). Interestingly, modern baseball stats have tended to downgrade stolen bases (as you cite). Rose was also a tremendous base-runner, in spite of his average speed.
Home runs are irrelevant to being the best leadoff hitter, in my opinion--it should be measured by on base percentage and runs scored. Both guys played well past their primes; it would be interesting to compare their top 10-12 seasons. I'm not saying Rose was better, only that he would give Rickey a run for his money.
I agree that the WAR-freaks seem to discount base-stealing. I think having a threat of a base-stealer can rattle a pitcher to a degree. Scot Podsednik of the Chicago White Sox will never be considered for any Hall of Fame notice but his base-stealing rattled opposing pitchers.
I loved Pete Rose as a boy. He was probably the second-best lead-off hitter in baseball history. Rose began his career in an era of pitching dominance. Henderson began his career in an era where baseball was more balanced. Ironically, Rose and Henderson died in the same year.
> Both guys played well past their primes; it would be interesting to compare their top 10-12 seasons
Pete wasn't going to retire until he passed Ty Cobb, but he could have done so after the end of the 1985 season and still retired with 4204 hits. But who is going to tell the playing manager to hang it up? There is a reason why there hasn't been once since.
Rickey could have lopped off those last two seasons and still had the run record with 2248, but realistically he should have retired two years before that after his full season with the Mets in 1999.
Rickey had a 14-year stretch (1980-93) where he was one of the best players in baseball every year; if he had retired after winning that World Series in Toronto he would have still been elected to the HOF. If someone wants to run the numbers, I would compare Rickey's best consecutive dozen years in that stretch (1980-91) to Pete's best (1968-79); it's funny that one dovetails right into the other.
> Scoring runs is the single most fundamental task to winning baseball games, and Henderson scored the most runs ever, 2,295 across 25 seasons.
While that's true, he had the benefit of batting leadoff, allowing for more opportunities; Runs Created is the better mark of a player's offensive contributions. Even so, Rickey finished 12th all-time in that metric, compiling 2164 RC.
> But he was a right-hander, playing on grass in Oakland’s symmetrical ballpark
Rickey is the only position player in the HOF who batted righty and threw lefty.
> He didn’t have a strong throwing arm, so, like Barry Bonds, he played the easier left field position rather than center field.
When Ricky was first traded to the Yankees, Yogi put him in center as they had Ken Griffey playing left. Only after trading KG to the Braves for Claudell Washington was Rickey able to move to his more natural place in LF. Johnny Damon must have gotten hurt in April 2002 so Grady Little ended up starting Rickey in CF for a few consecutive games for the Red Sox but that was the exception, not the rule.
As an aside, no article about Rickey is complete without mentioning Billy Martin; the two of them were both products of the East Bay and the best word to describe them is simpatico
There were news stories in 1980 where Rickey credited Billy with changing the A's culture, making the players care about winning. One quote from him: "It used to be that once the game was over, no one wanted to think about baseball at all. Now, win or lose, we think about it and ask questions now. You have to give Martin credit for instilling that kind of enthusiasm."
"Henderson scored the most runs ever, 2,295 across 25 seasons. Even the most casual baseball fan is likely to recognize most of the guys who came closest to his mark: Ty Cobb, Barry Bonds, Henry Aaron, Babe Ruth, Pete Rose, Willie Mays, and Alex Rodriguez"
Cobb scored 2,245 R's in 24 seasons; unlike Henderson, he batted 3rd and also cleanup for his career. That's actually a bit more impressive since as a leadoff hitter, Henderson would have more AB's per game and thus more opportunities to score R's.
"He only batted .279 (it didn’t help to play much of his prime in the Oakland Coliseum, a low-batting average ballpark"
Mickey Mantle, Gehrig, Ruth, and DiMaggio played in an equally difficult park for hitters, Yankee Stadium (which at the time was a pitchers ballpark). Except for Mantle, their career BA's are well above .300, and Mickey's BA is .298.
"He only hit 66 triples in his career, never more than 7 in one season"
Honestly assumed that Henderson had at over 100 3B's for his career. Cobb for instance had 295 career triples. Granted, during the Dead Ball era many future sluggers tended to hit lots of triples. But then as now, one still had to be fairly fast on the bases to reach third. During the 20th century, Rickey clearly was one of MLB's fastest ever on the basepaths, so it is strange that he didn't hit more triples. Also perhaps some third base coaches held him up from attempting to take the extra base. You really don't see a whole lot of triples hit in an MLB season, perhaps because 3B coaches tend to be conservative and think the runner will get thrown out trying to stretch it to third.
But with his speed on the bases, clearly Rickey should've hit more triples.
Henderson appears to have been the fourth best left-fielder, behind Barry Bonds, Stan Musial, and Ted Williams"
I don't know if we can really put Ted Williams in the category of all time greatest LF's, certainly Ted wasn't as great a fielder as Carl Yaztremski. Stan Musial was certainly a better fielding LF than Williams.
What does AI have to say about Ted's glove?
"Ted Williams was generally not considered a great fielder, despite playing left field for most of his career; while he could make spectacular plays occasionally, his overall fielding statistics were not considered elite compared to other players at his position, and he is primarily remembered for his incredible hitting ability"
BTW, PIT RF Dave Parker was finally inducted into the HOF. Unlike Rickey, or Ted, Dave Parker most definitely was a great fielding OFer. Great arm, excellent glove. He was the best possible replacement when PIT lost HOF RF Roberto Clemente (who is considered to be one of MLB's greatest ever fielding RFers).
Had Dave not had his career curtailed by the drug scandal of the early '80's, he was on track to have similar stats to HOF Dave Winfield.
Suppose better late than never. After all, if one can induct Andre Dawson, and Jim Rice, what the hell--why not Dave as well?
Now the HOF needs to induct Al Oliver, Rusty Staub, and Dave Kingman and pretty much all every legitimate 2nd tier "kinda sorta yeah lets put that dude in" from the list will be inducted from the late 60's, 70's and 80's.
I'm against putting Dave Parker in the Hall of Fame because his career stats aren't good enough and the reason they aren't good enough isn't injury or military duty or whatever, but cocaine. Keith Hernandez is closer than Parker to worthy career marks, but he also wasted a few years in his prime on cocaine, before coming back. So no Hall for Keith.
I agree that neither Parker nor Hernandez belong in the HOF. Not sure about Keith as opposed to Dave being the better player. One can make a case either way as to which of them is the better player as their stats are quite similar.
Both won MVP's, Parker won 2 batting titles. Parker has more career H's, RBI's, and HR's while Hernandez has a slightly higher career BA. They both were considered to be excellent defensive players at their respective positions during their era.
But the point also remains that compared to say, Jim Rice, and others, Parker's stats are quite good. His stats are almost on the level as Andre Dawson (whom I also don't think should be in the HOF). Parker certainly has better stats than recently inducted Gil Hodges.
Steve, suppose it comes out that Rickey Henderson did coke? There briefly was talk about him back in the early '80's. Probably will never know one way or the other now, especially since if he did coke at the time, he didn't get caught, like Keith and Dave did.
It's easy to state that Parker/Hernandez don't belong because their stats don't warrant automatic induction (and that using coke is more of an after the fact reason to rationalize, or justify their exclusion). But someone like Rickey Henderson?
Suddenly that's a little more...uh, nuanced, isn't it.
The idea that the all time greatest players didn't engage in abusive behaviors, or do things that they shouldn't have, well... there you are. Perhaps inadvertently that was one of Jim Bouton's points in Ball Four. Where Jim tended to miss it, was that in the preference he stated that if Mickey Mantle had written Ball Four, the media would've looked the other way because of who he was.
I agree, but think that Jim missed it. Mickey Mantle never would've written something like Ball Four back in that era. Because he was protected and was seen as a public symbol of the game itself, therefore Mickey was part of the system that needed to be upheld no matter what. And players like that generally aren't the ones who bring the system down and write books along those lines. Yes, times have changed but only up to a point. Derek Jeter wrote a book back when he was a player, and basically said nothing. He was probably protected by the NY media, and he publicly never embarrassed NY and didn't write a modern day version of Ball Four.
That was left up to the likes of Jose Canseco, who had a chip on his shoulder because MLB never understood him and never protected him the way they did other stars in the game.
Rickey's Wins Above Replacement is 111, while the usual cut-off for the Hall of Fame is around 60. Rickey is hugely above the HoF line, while Dave Parker at 40 is not. Keith Hernandez at 59 WAR is right about the 60 WAR cutoff.
I don't mind the idea of punishing Keith Hernandez, a highly intelligent white guy (of Spanish descent), a little more for not reaching 70 WAR and making his election to the Hall of Fame a no-brainer.
I can recall going to a Cubs-Mets baseball game at Wrigley Field in the mid-1980s, with my cousin who'd gotten seats right behind home plate from one of his minor league teammates now on the Mets. Sitting next to us was a hot babe who informed us that Keith always gave her free tix when she was in town. She left in the 5th inning. We then proceeded to regale Keith with drunken ribald commentary about him and the young lady. We felt we had triumphed when he grounded into double play in the 7th, after which he threw his helmet down in rage. At the moment, that seemed like a huge triumph, but I also recall thinking at the time that it's quite possible that Mr. Hernandez didn't care about us boo-birds at all?
Perhaps our seeming triumph was just a matter of luck?
So when in doubt...go with the WAR, and the heck with all other traditional stats. Taken to its extreme, that's actually a lazy thinking type of thing.
Well, Gil Hodges' career WAR was 43.8, and he's been inducted which is lower than Rusty Staub's WAR, and the same as Al Oliver. So at least for those two, and now Parker, the precedent is set to induct them as well at a later date.
And so I will balance Dave vs Keith with the stats that, you know, voters have been looking at for over, say...about 90 yrs.
Parker has more career HRs
Parker won 2 batting titles, to Keith's 1.
Both won the MVP (although technically Keith won half of a single MVP)
Parker has more career H's and RBI's, while Keith's career BA is slightly higher
Keith won 11 consecutive Gold Gloves, the most in MLB history, so hands down he has a case for being one of the greatest all time 1Bmen in MLB history. This is actually a case of the reverse, for what is common for 1Bmen. Usually, 1Bmen are so-so fielders and awesome at hitting (e.g. Gehrig, Greenberg, Sisler, Giambi, more recently comes to mind. David Ortiz was really mediocre, as BOS stopped playing him there for the last dozen or so yrs of his career).
But in Keith's case, his fielding was heads and shoulders over his bat. Like, he was the Ted Williams...of infielders. When you watched Keith in the field, he wasn't a bat stuck out there cause the NL didn't have the DH, you knew exactly that 1B was a legitimate fielding position in the infield, which unfortunately, is a rarity in MLB, then and even to some extent now. If anything, he was a slightly above average hitter, compared to his glove and arm.
So on that metric, his glove and arm, Keith Hernandez stands shoulders above Parker (who did though win 3 gold gloves in RF, and in 77 had 26 assists the most since Clemente in 61, the comparison to Clemente was made with Parker during the early part of his career).
Bottom line: without coke, Dave probably would've gotten 3k H's, over 400 HR's and been a first ballot HOFer.
"Perhaps our seeming triumph was just a matter of luck?"
By the way,...who won the game? Oh, it was the Cubs during the 80's, so if it wasn't during 84 or 89, when they won the NL East, it was probably a crap shoot
Then as now, MLBers are probably used to being booed, especially on the road.
I'll take this opportunity to promote the candidacy of one Bill "Mad Dog" Madlock for the Hall of Fame! Four batting titles, .305 career average. Great fielder, a scrappy player (like Rose), great teammate. Yes, he was a horse's rear-end, but nobody who played with him didn't love him.
Madlock's WAR was almost exactly the same as Harold Baines'. He was a hitting machine. He didn't have a lot of power and never knocked in more than 100 runs. He rarely struck out.
I've never been a fan of WAR, and it's become a way for non-baseball people to mindlessly assess players. I think we should use a variety of metrics to assess a player's career, including the "eye test." I like to ask this (of hitters): Was there a stretch when he was one of the most feared batters in the game? Was he a guy that pitchers hated to see in the 8th or 9th inning of a close game? I'd still say the batting titles and fielding put Madlock well ahead of Baines.
Right. There may be 200 more deserving Hall-of-Famers than Parker. And if you put Dave Kingman in the Hall, why not Frank Howard. Then you start having a Hall-of-the-Very Good.
Baines was probably himself shocked to be voted in to the Hall. The Veteran's Committee bungled that one. Sometimes players are not very analytical. Who's next for the Hall? Paul Konerko? Paul Blair? John Mayberry? Tommy Herr? Roger Maris?
Fwiw, Frank Howard was a much, much better baseball player than Kingman. He has more than twice the WAR over his career. Freddie Patek, nobody's idea of a HOF player, has substantially more WAR than Kingman, over a shorter career.
I grew up a Senators' fan and Hondo was their star player. Watching him play in left-field was like watching a wounded water-buffalo but he did hustle. He was poor in the field and that's why his WAR is not as high.
Again, the precedent has been set. It's very hard to say that Dave Kingman can't be inducted when Jim Rice, Gil Hodges, Harold Baines, and several others are in the HOF. Kingman has about the same number of career HR's as Andre Dawson.
It will be interesting to see various voters personal biases when they attempt to make the case that so and so doesn't belong (even when said individual has similar stats) and yet a "second tier" player has already been inducted.
Make that make sense. Because it doesn't, except of course that this is yet another example of personal biases at work for HOF voters.
Uh, we already do have a Hall of Very Good, and have had one for quite some time. Gil Hodges, Jim Rice, the list goes on. Perhaps now its become easier to induct the Very Good, rather than come to grips with the PED Era. Or Eras, depending on how one wants to count.
Looking at Parker's stats, I wonder why his WAR is so low. I'm guessing that his defense declined rapidly after his drug problems in the early 80s, he had a poor stolen-base percentage and he didn't walk a whole lot for a slugger.
Another player whose WAR is lower than I would have thought is Don Kessinger, who was an elite All-Star shortstop for those winning Cubs teams in the late 60s and early 70s. His WAR is something like 9.
Don Kessinger--now I'm going down the baseball rabbit hole of my youth! I wasn't a Cubs fan, but loved their players--Ron Santo, Billy WIlliams, Ernie Banks (downside of his career but still), Rick Monday, Fergie Jenkins, Bill Hands, and the catcher I can't remember.
Kessinger was my first baseball card. He was my favorite player at the time. Those Cubs just couldn't get over the top. But they had a solid team and Banks, Williams, Jenkins and Santo are in the Hall-of-Fame.
Despite 1975 being his last year with the team, Kessinger was so popular as a Cub that the White Sox traded for him in August 1977 to back up Alan Bannister and Bob Lemon made him the full-time shortstop in 1978. The White Sox then promoted Kessinger to player-manager for 1979 as he backed up Greg Pryor. Kessinger went 46-60 before being fired in favor of Tony LaRussa; to this day Kessinger is the last player-manager in the American League
Don Kessinger went to 6 All Star games while Mark Belanger only went to 1. But the current stats show Kessinger as a ho-hum defensive shortstop and Belanger as a contender for best ever defensive shortstop.
I dunno. The view of people who saw both play was that they were both slick glovemen, and it makes sense to listen to contemporary opinion, especially from eras when we don't have much really good statistics.
Keith gets the edge for me because of his fielding, clutch performances, leadership, and best cameo in Seinfeld. If you consider that it’s “Fame” and not “Greatness”, Keith is surely deserving.
Dave Parker was famous. He made it through. Perhaps it depends on whether or not a specific player is popular with the right people (e.g. HOF voters). If Kingman had supporters and not haters, he'd have been inducted by now. The Veterans Committee would've pushed for him til he made it.
While I'm not doubting your assertion, I would like to note that Pete Rose was primarily a leadoff hitter as well. Pete was a bit before my time and the two players are diametric so I couldn't say definitively which player was better.
> Still, Rickey was Rickey
Rickey was named for Ricky Nelson. Nelson's given first name was Eric, while Henderson's given first name was indeed Rickey.
Henderson was the affable egomaniac: sure, he talked about himself in the 3rd person, said silly things, and spent his money to show off (when he was in his 40s and out of the MLB he was still playing independent league ball and took personal limos to the games), but he always played hard, put in a great performance, and was more about making himself look good than making other guys look bad.
He was a good example of a prima donna: yes, he was eccentric, but he earned that eccentricity, and his eccentricity wasn't hard to stomach and made you laugh.
> What about 1985, when Ricky won Don Mattingly the MVP award for driving in 145 runs by scoring 146 in just 143 games?
Billy Martin led these Yankees to a record of 91-54 (.628), the best record in baseball. Sadly a slow start under Yogi Berra, combined with a lack of wild card teams, kept the Yankees home in October as two of Martin's proteges, Dick Howser and Bobby Cox, managed against each other in the ALCS.
The top of the deck was stacked with Henderson, Griffey, Mattingly, Winfield, and Baylor; that's 3 AL MVP's and two top-eight runners-up in the NL. Sadly, besides Guidry's last hurrah of 22-6 (with 11 complete games!) the pitching staff couldn't back up the offense. To put those 11 CG into context, the American League pitchers as a whole pitched 12 complete games last year.
Then in 1986, Mattingly had his greatest year, hitting .352 with 388 total bases, but he had only 113 RBIs compared to 145 RBIs the year before in large part because Henderson hit only .263, while still scoring a league-leading 130 runs.
Still, it's great that Henderson and Mattingly had a few years near their peaks together.
Yes, in 1986 Mattingly had 150 runs created, an improvement of 14 from 1985 and 30 from 1984, his first full season. Sadly for Mattingly, 1986 was also the year that Roger Clemens decided to win 24 games and strike out 238. Throw in the fact that the Red Sox won the pennant and the voters gave Clemens the MVP. Now Dale Murphy and Roger Maris also won back-to-back MVP's and the only way they ever got into Cooperstown was with a ticket, but it's a shame that Mattingly was denied this feather in his cap.
> Still, it's great that Henderson and Mattingly had a few years near their peaks together
And Winfield as well; those mid-80s Yankees teams are what made me a baseball fan for life.
Donald Trump's mentor, George Steinbrenner, had assembled a bunch of Hall of Famers and near HoFers (Rickey, Winfield, Mattingly, Guidry, etc.) but they didn't quite get it done. I don't have a theory for their failure to win a World Series. It seems pretty random.
Yes, until the Yankees got Rickey, Randolph was their lead-off batter for many years. After the Dodgers won the World Series in 1988 Steve Sax signed with the Yankees as a free agent so the Dodgers signed Randolph to replace him. Randolph missed winning the Dodgers World Series by a year as well as the Athletics World Series by a year but later had an excellent comeback season with the Brewers.
The Yankees thought highly enough of him to make him captain in 1986, which he held for three years. Remember in baseball, unlike the other team sports, there is no requirement that there be a captain so this was quite an honor that only 16 Yankees have held.
After retirement he was a Yankee coach for 11 years but like another former Yankee captain (Don Mattingly) it was obvious that the Yankees were never going to promote him to manager so he had to try to find his success elsewhere. It is worth noting that the two Yankee managers after Joe Torre were both mediocre players at best (Joe Girardi and Aaron Boone); Randolph and Mattingly put them both to shame as players.
Part of growing old is seeing great sports stars get old and die. Ricky Henderson is the greatest lead-off hitter in baseball history. But it is fascinating that he hit so few triples in 25 years of playing. It is shocking that he has died so relatively young.
Circa 1982 I attended an Old-Timers baseball game at RFK Stadium. Lou Brock, retired only three years, was one of the players. He was already fat and unathletic. Eventually Brock would have a leg amputated due to diabetes.
Good point, Pete played well past his performance decline due to him being the coach. I also never liked Kobe due to his selfish style, he cost his teams a lot of games.
Pete Rose had a few bad years in his 40s, but he also had enough decent years that you can see the justification for him keeping playing to catch Ty Cobb.
Best player of the 80's?
Two household names I can recall, apart from Bruce Lee of course, Bruce Jenner and Ricky Henderson.
Here is a great Rickey story, courtesy of Joe Posnanski:
My favorite Rickey Henderson story of the many hundreds happened when he came back to Oakland and was looking to assure his new manager, Tony La Russa, that he would be a team player. Up to that point, Rickey ran whenever he wanted to run, he had a perpetual green light, but he asked to be shown the signs and promised to follow them. So they showed him the steal sign, the hit-and-run sign, the bunt sign. And they told him that when a coach swiped his arms, that took off all signs.
Not long after, Henderson was on first, and the coach swiped his arms, signaling to Henderson that he was to stay. Rickey stole second anyway, and came around to score. The next time he reached first, the coach again swiped his arms, again signaling Henderson to stay. Rickey stole second again.
La Russa furiously cornered Henderson in the dugout and asked him why he wasn’t following the signs. Henderson looked puzzled.
“You said if he swipes his arms, that means take off sign,’” Henderson said.
La Russa nodded.
“Well, he swiped his arms,” Rickey said. “And Rickey took off.”
Assuming the veracity of the story, that coach was Rene Lachemann, who ended up managing the Florida Marlins their first 3½ seasons
Hilarious story.
While playing for the Padres in 1996, Rickey was the last to board the team bus. As a veteran, he had expected someone to leave him his own row, but there wasn't a full one open.
"No seats for Rickey?," Henderson said, standing in the front of the bus. "Rickey don't get no seat? Ain't nobody got a seat for Rickey?"
"Just tell one of the kids to move," Brad Ausmus said. "You've got tenure."
"Tenure?!" Rickey replied, indignant. "Nah, Rickey got 15 year!"
Great player, lucky to have been in Bay Area during his prime. Did not know he referred to himself in the 3rd person. Perhaps Ricky was the inspiration for Seinfeld's Jimmy?
Rickey didn't want to live in a world without baseball in Oakland
Oakland has generated a ridiculous number of great athletes, perhaps due to its superb climate.
Hershel Walker also refers to himself in the third person.
Bill James famously said of Rickey, "If you could split him in two, you'd have two Hall of Famers."
In elementary school we'd have to prepare and deliver a speech every February and every year the subject of my speech was Rickey Henderson. His "autobiography" was the first book I read all the way through.
I modeled my style of play after him. Low-stance, steal every chance I could. Eventually my coaches realized I couldn't see the damn ball and it would be best for the team if I stopped swinging until the count had two strikes. From 12-14 this was a brilliant strategy because pitchers couldn't hit the strike zone and catchers couldn't throw out anyone speedy stealing second base.
I was the least skilled player on the team but, as I kept telling everyone (I knew my Sabermetrics - I had Out of the Park Baseball!), I was easily the most valuable. "Just like Rickey."
I shed a tear today for my lost youth. "A boy's will is the wind's will, and the thoughts of youth are long, long thoughts."
Great ending quote, may I ask where that’s from?
My Lost Youth by Longfellow
Robert Frost's A Boy's Will explores related themes. It's very good.
Thank you! Merry Christmas
I loved watching Henderson play, but Pete Rose gives him a run as the best leadoff hitter ever.
Rose scored a huge number of runs. He didn't steal but he taught himself in his 30s to hit doubles, leading the league five times in doubles after he was 32. So he got to second base a lot that way.
Rose had a poor caught-stealing to successful-stealing rate. I believe 70 % is the percentage success rate you need to make stealing a base worth while.
Agreed, but he was not a base stealer. Henderson had a huge number of steals but also had an average success rate (I think he holds the record for most times caught stealing in a season!). Interestingly, modern baseball stats have tended to downgrade stolen bases (as you cite). Rose was also a tremendous base-runner, in spite of his average speed.
Home runs are irrelevant to being the best leadoff hitter, in my opinion--it should be measured by on base percentage and runs scored. Both guys played well past their primes; it would be interesting to compare their top 10-12 seasons. I'm not saying Rose was better, only that he would give Rickey a run for his money.
I agree that the WAR-freaks seem to discount base-stealing. I think having a threat of a base-stealer can rattle a pitcher to a degree. Scot Podsednik of the Chicago White Sox will never be considered for any Hall of Fame notice but his base-stealing rattled opposing pitchers.
I loved Pete Rose as a boy. He was probably the second-best lead-off hitter in baseball history. Rose began his career in an era of pitching dominance. Henderson began his career in an era where baseball was more balanced. Ironically, Rose and Henderson died in the same year.
> Both guys played well past their primes; it would be interesting to compare their top 10-12 seasons
Pete wasn't going to retire until he passed Ty Cobb, but he could have done so after the end of the 1985 season and still retired with 4204 hits. But who is going to tell the playing manager to hang it up? There is a reason why there hasn't been once since.
Rickey could have lopped off those last two seasons and still had the run record with 2248, but realistically he should have retired two years before that after his full season with the Mets in 1999.
Rickey had a 14-year stretch (1980-93) where he was one of the best players in baseball every year; if he had retired after winning that World Series in Toronto he would have still been elected to the HOF. If someone wants to run the numbers, I would compare Rickey's best consecutive dozen years in that stretch (1980-91) to Pete's best (1968-79); it's funny that one dovetails right into the other.
> Scoring runs is the single most fundamental task to winning baseball games, and Henderson scored the most runs ever, 2,295 across 25 seasons.
While that's true, he had the benefit of batting leadoff, allowing for more opportunities; Runs Created is the better mark of a player's offensive contributions. Even so, Rickey finished 12th all-time in that metric, compiling 2164 RC.
> But he was a right-hander, playing on grass in Oakland’s symmetrical ballpark
Rickey is the only position player in the HOF who batted righty and threw lefty.
> He didn’t have a strong throwing arm, so, like Barry Bonds, he played the easier left field position rather than center field.
When Ricky was first traded to the Yankees, Yogi put him in center as they had Ken Griffey playing left. Only after trading KG to the Braves for Claudell Washington was Rickey able to move to his more natural place in LF. Johnny Damon must have gotten hurt in April 2002 so Grady Little ended up starting Rickey in CF for a few consecutive games for the Red Sox but that was the exception, not the rule.
As an aside, no article about Rickey is complete without mentioning Billy Martin; the two of them were both products of the East Bay and the best word to describe them is simpatico
There were news stories in 1980 where Rickey credited Billy with changing the A's culture, making the players care about winning. One quote from him: "It used to be that once the game was over, no one wanted to think about baseball at all. Now, win or lose, we think about it and ask questions now. You have to give Martin credit for instilling that kind of enthusiasm."
"Henderson scored the most runs ever, 2,295 across 25 seasons. Even the most casual baseball fan is likely to recognize most of the guys who came closest to his mark: Ty Cobb, Barry Bonds, Henry Aaron, Babe Ruth, Pete Rose, Willie Mays, and Alex Rodriguez"
Cobb scored 2,245 R's in 24 seasons; unlike Henderson, he batted 3rd and also cleanup for his career. That's actually a bit more impressive since as a leadoff hitter, Henderson would have more AB's per game and thus more opportunities to score R's.
"He only batted .279 (it didn’t help to play much of his prime in the Oakland Coliseum, a low-batting average ballpark"
Mickey Mantle, Gehrig, Ruth, and DiMaggio played in an equally difficult park for hitters, Yankee Stadium (which at the time was a pitchers ballpark). Except for Mantle, their career BA's are well above .300, and Mickey's BA is .298.
"He only hit 66 triples in his career, never more than 7 in one season"
Honestly assumed that Henderson had at over 100 3B's for his career. Cobb for instance had 295 career triples. Granted, during the Dead Ball era many future sluggers tended to hit lots of triples. But then as now, one still had to be fairly fast on the bases to reach third. During the 20th century, Rickey clearly was one of MLB's fastest ever on the basepaths, so it is strange that he didn't hit more triples. Also perhaps some third base coaches held him up from attempting to take the extra base. You really don't see a whole lot of triples hit in an MLB season, perhaps because 3B coaches tend to be conservative and think the runner will get thrown out trying to stretch it to third.
But with his speed on the bases, clearly Rickey should've hit more triples.
Henderson appears to have been the fourth best left-fielder, behind Barry Bonds, Stan Musial, and Ted Williams"
I don't know if we can really put Ted Williams in the category of all time greatest LF's, certainly Ted wasn't as great a fielder as Carl Yaztremski. Stan Musial was certainly a better fielding LF than Williams.
What does AI have to say about Ted's glove?
"Ted Williams was generally not considered a great fielder, despite playing left field for most of his career; while he could make spectacular plays occasionally, his overall fielding statistics were not considered elite compared to other players at his position, and he is primarily remembered for his incredible hitting ability"
BTW, PIT RF Dave Parker was finally inducted into the HOF. Unlike Rickey, or Ted, Dave Parker most definitely was a great fielding OFer. Great arm, excellent glove. He was the best possible replacement when PIT lost HOF RF Roberto Clemente (who is considered to be one of MLB's greatest ever fielding RFers).
Had Dave not had his career curtailed by the drug scandal of the early '80's, he was on track to have similar stats to HOF Dave Winfield.
Suppose better late than never. After all, if one can induct Andre Dawson, and Jim Rice, what the hell--why not Dave as well?
Now the HOF needs to induct Al Oliver, Rusty Staub, and Dave Kingman and pretty much all every legitimate 2nd tier "kinda sorta yeah lets put that dude in" from the list will be inducted from the late 60's, 70's and 80's.
Rickey was truly one in a million.
I'm against putting Dave Parker in the Hall of Fame because his career stats aren't good enough and the reason they aren't good enough isn't injury or military duty or whatever, but cocaine. Keith Hernandez is closer than Parker to worthy career marks, but he also wasted a few years in his prime on cocaine, before coming back. So no Hall for Keith.
I agree that neither Parker nor Hernandez belong in the HOF. Not sure about Keith as opposed to Dave being the better player. One can make a case either way as to which of them is the better player as their stats are quite similar.
Both won MVP's, Parker won 2 batting titles. Parker has more career H's, RBI's, and HR's while Hernandez has a slightly higher career BA. They both were considered to be excellent defensive players at their respective positions during their era.
But the point also remains that compared to say, Jim Rice, and others, Parker's stats are quite good. His stats are almost on the level as Andre Dawson (whom I also don't think should be in the HOF). Parker certainly has better stats than recently inducted Gil Hodges.
Steve, suppose it comes out that Rickey Henderson did coke? There briefly was talk about him back in the early '80's. Probably will never know one way or the other now, especially since if he did coke at the time, he didn't get caught, like Keith and Dave did.
It's easy to state that Parker/Hernandez don't belong because their stats don't warrant automatic induction (and that using coke is more of an after the fact reason to rationalize, or justify their exclusion). But someone like Rickey Henderson?
Suddenly that's a little more...uh, nuanced, isn't it.
The idea that the all time greatest players didn't engage in abusive behaviors, or do things that they shouldn't have, well... there you are. Perhaps inadvertently that was one of Jim Bouton's points in Ball Four. Where Jim tended to miss it, was that in the preference he stated that if Mickey Mantle had written Ball Four, the media would've looked the other way because of who he was.
I agree, but think that Jim missed it. Mickey Mantle never would've written something like Ball Four back in that era. Because he was protected and was seen as a public symbol of the game itself, therefore Mickey was part of the system that needed to be upheld no matter what. And players like that generally aren't the ones who bring the system down and write books along those lines. Yes, times have changed but only up to a point. Derek Jeter wrote a book back when he was a player, and basically said nothing. He was probably protected by the NY media, and he publicly never embarrassed NY and didn't write a modern day version of Ball Four.
That was left up to the likes of Jose Canseco, who had a chip on his shoulder because MLB never understood him and never protected him the way they did other stars in the game.
Rickey's Wins Above Replacement is 111, while the usual cut-off for the Hall of Fame is around 60. Rickey is hugely above the HoF line, while Dave Parker at 40 is not. Keith Hernandez at 59 WAR is right about the 60 WAR cutoff.
I don't mind the idea of punishing Keith Hernandez, a highly intelligent white guy (of Spanish descent), a little more for not reaching 70 WAR and making his election to the Hall of Fame a no-brainer.
I can recall going to a Cubs-Mets baseball game at Wrigley Field in the mid-1980s, with my cousin who'd gotten seats right behind home plate from one of his minor league teammates now on the Mets. Sitting next to us was a hot babe who informed us that Keith always gave her free tix when she was in town. She left in the 5th inning. We then proceeded to regale Keith with drunken ribald commentary about him and the young lady. We felt we had triumphed when he grounded into double play in the 7th, after which he threw his helmet down in rage. At the moment, that seemed like a huge triumph, but I also recall thinking at the time that it's quite possible that Mr. Hernandez didn't care about us boo-birds at all?
Perhaps our seeming triumph was just a matter of luck?
So when in doubt...go with the WAR, and the heck with all other traditional stats. Taken to its extreme, that's actually a lazy thinking type of thing.
Well, Gil Hodges' career WAR was 43.8, and he's been inducted which is lower than Rusty Staub's WAR, and the same as Al Oliver. So at least for those two, and now Parker, the precedent is set to induct them as well at a later date.
And so I will balance Dave vs Keith with the stats that, you know, voters have been looking at for over, say...about 90 yrs.
Parker has more career HRs
Parker won 2 batting titles, to Keith's 1.
Both won the MVP (although technically Keith won half of a single MVP)
Parker has more career H's and RBI's, while Keith's career BA is slightly higher
Keith won 11 consecutive Gold Gloves, the most in MLB history, so hands down he has a case for being one of the greatest all time 1Bmen in MLB history. This is actually a case of the reverse, for what is common for 1Bmen. Usually, 1Bmen are so-so fielders and awesome at hitting (e.g. Gehrig, Greenberg, Sisler, Giambi, more recently comes to mind. David Ortiz was really mediocre, as BOS stopped playing him there for the last dozen or so yrs of his career).
But in Keith's case, his fielding was heads and shoulders over his bat. Like, he was the Ted Williams...of infielders. When you watched Keith in the field, he wasn't a bat stuck out there cause the NL didn't have the DH, you knew exactly that 1B was a legitimate fielding position in the infield, which unfortunately, is a rarity in MLB, then and even to some extent now. If anything, he was a slightly above average hitter, compared to his glove and arm.
So on that metric, his glove and arm, Keith Hernandez stands shoulders above Parker (who did though win 3 gold gloves in RF, and in 77 had 26 assists the most since Clemente in 61, the comparison to Clemente was made with Parker during the early part of his career).
Bottom line: without coke, Dave probably would've gotten 3k H's, over 400 HR's and been a first ballot HOFer.
"Perhaps our seeming triumph was just a matter of luck?"
By the way,...who won the game? Oh, it was the Cubs during the 80's, so if it wasn't during 84 or 89, when they won the NL East, it was probably a crap shoot
Then as now, MLBers are probably used to being booed, especially on the road.
I'll take this opportunity to promote the candidacy of one Bill "Mad Dog" Madlock for the Hall of Fame! Four batting titles, .305 career average. Great fielder, a scrappy player (like Rose), great teammate. Yes, he was a horse's rear-end, but nobody who played with him didn't love him.
Madlock's WAR was almost exactly the same as Harold Baines'. He was a hitting machine. He didn't have a lot of power and never knocked in more than 100 runs. He rarely struck out.
I've never been a fan of WAR, and it's become a way for non-baseball people to mindlessly assess players. I think we should use a variety of metrics to assess a player's career, including the "eye test." I like to ask this (of hitters): Was there a stretch when he was one of the most feared batters in the game? Was he a guy that pitchers hated to see in the 8th or 9th inning of a close game? I'd still say the batting titles and fielding put Madlock well ahead of Baines.
I have to say that you don't seem the type to heckle ballplayers at the game
Right. There may be 200 more deserving Hall-of-Famers than Parker. And if you put Dave Kingman in the Hall, why not Frank Howard. Then you start having a Hall-of-the-Very Good.
In my opinion, with the "Veterans Committee" (or whatever they're calling it now,) we already have a Hall of the Very Good! Seriously, Harold Baines?
Baines was probably himself shocked to be voted in to the Hall. The Veteran's Committee bungled that one. Sometimes players are not very analytical. Who's next for the Hall? Paul Konerko? Paul Blair? John Mayberry? Tommy Herr? Roger Maris?
Fwiw, Frank Howard was a much, much better baseball player than Kingman. He has more than twice the WAR over his career. Freddie Patek, nobody's idea of a HOF player, has substantially more WAR than Kingman, over a shorter career.
I grew up a Senators' fan and Hondo was their star player. Watching him play in left-field was like watching a wounded water-buffalo but he did hustle. He was poor in the field and that's why his WAR is not as high.
Kingman was pretty bad. He hit 35 homers in his final season, but nobody wanted to sign him so he never played in the MLB again.
Again, the precedent has been set. It's very hard to say that Dave Kingman can't be inducted when Jim Rice, Gil Hodges, Harold Baines, and several others are in the HOF. Kingman has about the same number of career HR's as Andre Dawson.
It will be interesting to see various voters personal biases when they attempt to make the case that so and so doesn't belong (even when said individual has similar stats) and yet a "second tier" player has already been inducted.
Make that make sense. Because it doesn't, except of course that this is yet another example of personal biases at work for HOF voters.
Uh, we already do have a Hall of Very Good, and have had one for quite some time. Gil Hodges, Jim Rice, the list goes on. Perhaps now its become easier to induct the Very Good, rather than come to grips with the PED Era. Or Eras, depending on how one wants to count.
Looking at Parker's stats, I wonder why his WAR is so low. I'm guessing that his defense declined rapidly after his drug problems in the early 80s, he had a poor stolen-base percentage and he didn't walk a whole lot for a slugger.
Another player whose WAR is lower than I would have thought is Don Kessinger, who was an elite All-Star shortstop for those winning Cubs teams in the late 60s and early 70s. His WAR is something like 9.
Don Kessinger--now I'm going down the baseball rabbit hole of my youth! I wasn't a Cubs fan, but loved their players--Ron Santo, Billy WIlliams, Ernie Banks (downside of his career but still), Rick Monday, Fergie Jenkins, Bill Hands, and the catcher I can't remember.
Kessinger was my first baseball card. He was my favorite player at the time. Those Cubs just couldn't get over the top. But they had a solid team and Banks, Williams, Jenkins and Santo are in the Hall-of-Fame.
Santo. There's another one. IF he can be inducted, Oh but Kingman no way, he can't.
See? The slippery slope. HOF for this ham and egger but not that ham and egger.
Again, it's not making sense.
Santo had a 70 WAR. He was a dominant third-baseman for about a decade.
Bertell?
I had to look it up--Randy Hundley.
What about Dick Selma?
Winning Cubs teams?
Despite 1975 being his last year with the team, Kessinger was so popular as a Cub that the White Sox traded for him in August 1977 to back up Alan Bannister and Bob Lemon made him the full-time shortstop in 1978. The White Sox then promoted Kessinger to player-manager for 1979 as he backed up Greg Pryor. Kessinger went 46-60 before being fired in favor of Tony LaRussa; to this day Kessinger is the last player-manager in the American League
Don Kessinger went to 6 All Star games while Mark Belanger only went to 1. But the current stats show Kessinger as a ho-hum defensive shortstop and Belanger as a contender for best ever defensive shortstop.
I dunno. The view of people who saw both play was that they were both slick glovemen, and it makes sense to listen to contemporary opinion, especially from eras when we don't have much really good statistics.
Kessinger was an error machine early in his career. He won his two Gold Gloves at the pinnacle of his career when his errors dropped dramatically.
Keith gets the edge for me because of his fielding, clutch performances, leadership, and best cameo in Seinfeld. If you consider that it’s “Fame” and not “Greatness”, Keith is surely deserving.
I'm never exactly sure why being famous doesn't help get you into the Hall of Fame: e.g., Fernando Valenzuela, Keith Hernandez, Tommy John, etc.
Tommy John deserves induction.
Dave Parker was famous. He made it through. Perhaps it depends on whether or not a specific player is popular with the right people (e.g. HOF voters). If Kingman had supporters and not haters, he'd have been inducted by now. The Veterans Committee would've pushed for him til he made it.
Two minor observations I would like to make...
> He was the greatest leadoff hitter of all time.
While I'm not doubting your assertion, I would like to note that Pete Rose was primarily a leadoff hitter as well. Pete was a bit before my time and the two players are diametric so I couldn't say definitively which player was better.
> Still, Rickey was Rickey
Rickey was named for Ricky Nelson. Nelson's given first name was Eric, while Henderson's given first name was indeed Rickey.
Henderson was the affable egomaniac: sure, he talked about himself in the 3rd person, said silly things, and spent his money to show off (when he was in his 40s and out of the MLB he was still playing independent league ball and took personal limos to the games), but he always played hard, put in a great performance, and was more about making himself look good than making other guys look bad.
He was a good example of a prima donna: yes, he was eccentric, but he earned that eccentricity, and his eccentricity wasn't hard to stomach and made you laugh.
RIP Rickey. You magnificent bastard.
> What about 1985, when Ricky won Don Mattingly the MVP award for driving in 145 runs by scoring 146 in just 143 games?
Billy Martin led these Yankees to a record of 91-54 (.628), the best record in baseball. Sadly a slow start under Yogi Berra, combined with a lack of wild card teams, kept the Yankees home in October as two of Martin's proteges, Dick Howser and Bobby Cox, managed against each other in the ALCS.
The top of the deck was stacked with Henderson, Griffey, Mattingly, Winfield, and Baylor; that's 3 AL MVP's and two top-eight runners-up in the NL. Sadly, besides Guidry's last hurrah of 22-6 (with 11 complete games!) the pitching staff couldn't back up the offense. To put those 11 CG into context, the American League pitchers as a whole pitched 12 complete games last year.
Then in 1986, Mattingly had his greatest year, hitting .352 with 388 total bases, but he had only 113 RBIs compared to 145 RBIs the year before in large part because Henderson hit only .263, while still scoring a league-leading 130 runs.
Still, it's great that Henderson and Mattingly had a few years near their peaks together.
> in 1986, Mattingly had his greatest year
Yes, in 1986 Mattingly had 150 runs created, an improvement of 14 from 1985 and 30 from 1984, his first full season. Sadly for Mattingly, 1986 was also the year that Roger Clemens decided to win 24 games and strike out 238. Throw in the fact that the Red Sox won the pennant and the voters gave Clemens the MVP. Now Dale Murphy and Roger Maris also won back-to-back MVP's and the only way they ever got into Cooperstown was with a ticket, but it's a shame that Mattingly was denied this feather in his cap.
> Still, it's great that Henderson and Mattingly had a few years near their peaks together
And Winfield as well; those mid-80s Yankees teams are what made me a baseball fan for life.
Donald Trump's mentor, George Steinbrenner, had assembled a bunch of Hall of Famers and near HoFers (Rickey, Winfield, Mattingly, Guidry, etc.) but they didn't quite get it done. I don't have a theory for their failure to win a World Series. It seems pretty random.
Willie Randolph had Hall of Fame quality stats for a second baseman from 1976-1991.
Yes, until the Yankees got Rickey, Randolph was their lead-off batter for many years. After the Dodgers won the World Series in 1988 Steve Sax signed with the Yankees as a free agent so the Dodgers signed Randolph to replace him. Randolph missed winning the Dodgers World Series by a year as well as the Athletics World Series by a year but later had an excellent comeback season with the Brewers.
The Yankees thought highly enough of him to make him captain in 1986, which he held for three years. Remember in baseball, unlike the other team sports, there is no requirement that there be a captain so this was quite an honor that only 16 Yankees have held.
After retirement he was a Yankee coach for 11 years but like another former Yankee captain (Don Mattingly) it was obvious that the Yankees were never going to promote him to manager so he had to try to find his success elsewhere. It is worth noting that the two Yankee managers after Joe Torre were both mediocre players at best (Joe Girardi and Aaron Boone); Randolph and Mattingly put them both to shame as players.
Part of growing old is seeing great sports stars get old and die. Ricky Henderson is the greatest lead-off hitter in baseball history. But it is fascinating that he hit so few triples in 25 years of playing. It is shocking that he has died so relatively young.
Circa 1982 I attended an Old-Timers baseball game at RFK Stadium. Lou Brock, retired only three years, was one of the players. He was already fat and unathletic. Eventually Brock would have a leg amputated due to diabetes.
Pete Rose is the all-time leader in outs made and it's not even close.
Reminds me of another overrated player, Kobe Bryant. All-time leader in missed shots.
Good point, Pete played well past his performance decline due to him being the coach. I also never liked Kobe due to his selfish style, he cost his teams a lot of games.
Rose hit .325 in 1981 and he was even fairly effective in 1985.
Pete Rose had a few bad years in his 40s, but he also had enough decent years that you can see the justification for him keeping playing to catch Ty Cobb.
Pete could have retired with the record and still had over 4200 hits if stopped after 1985
Among his other accomplishments, Rickey was Nolan Ryan’s 5,000th career strikeout.
OT:
AI Whistleblower Sounds The Alarm: You Won't Believe What He Has To Say
https://ydydy.substack.com/p/the-new-gatekeeper-a-warning-from