Baseball Legend Rickey Henderson Passes Away at 65!
Story by Mitchell Smith
Hello everybody. Today we say goodbye to yet another Legend. The great Rickey Henderson passed away Friday 12/20/24 after a battle with pneumonia. Henderson was one of the reasons I started watching baseball and became a fan of the Oakland Athletics. Henderson was born in 1958 in Chicago. Henderson who was born in the back seat of a car on his way to the hospital joked he was born fast. In high school Henderson played Basketball, baseball, and football. Despite several scholarship offers for college football Henderson took the advice of his mother and pursued baseball. Rickey quickly made a name for himself getting 2 hits and a stolen base in his major league debut.
As the seasons went on Henderson was breaking and setting stolen base records. He would go on to become the all time stolen base record holder with 1406 stolen bases. This is a record that will most likely never be beat, and if it ever was there will be an asterisk as the bases are now larger. Henderson also holds the single season record with 130 stolen bases and career runs with 2295. There is no dispute who the greatest lead off hitter and baserunner of all time is. Growing up my father was not a huge sports fan. He liked watching boxing and every once in a while baseball. He grew up a Brooklyn Dodgers fan so he lost interest a little when they moved to LA. So growing up I was free to pick my own team without any strong personal attached influence. Oakland was one of the top teams in the late eighties right when I was getting into sports.
Naturally the team was in the highlights and it was my first team before I transitioned to a Braves fan. Henderson was such a unique person and was so flawless I thought he was going to steal every time he got on base. I don’t think I was alone and I can’t quite remember but I’m pretty sure I watched at least 1 of the 4 times Henderson stole home. He was an exciting player to watch and a great talent on the field. Sadly Rickey at age 65 was also fast again. His name will forever hang in the record books and he will be dearly missed. Rest in peace Mr Rickey Henderson.
