Tomorrow will be Rickey Henderson's induction into baseball's Hall of Fame. It has the potential to be one of the greatest induction speeches in history.
I hope so since Rickey deserves that. In my lifetime (I'll turn 34 tomorrow), Henderson may be the second best player in baseball (Bonds first). He was a freak on the base-paths as the stud of the stolen base era of baseball. He also hit for power as all those lead-off home runs will attest. He wasn't the greatest fielder but he covered so much ground and did win one Gold Glove in his career. Of course, some of baseball's best clubhouse stories (true or not, eh John Olerud?) have been about Rickey.
Guys like that make the Hall of Fame zing. I'm hoping his bust will have some gold chains on it. Future generations can go to Cooperstown and hear about all that Rickey did and the style of baseball that was played during this time. A man who played during the 1970s, 80s, 90s and 2000s. A man with a seemingly insurmountable 1,406 stolen bases -- including a record 130 in 1982. He played for World Champions in Oakland and Toronto. When he retired, he held the record for walks, runs scored and lead-off home runs. He was the 1990 AL MVP.
Again, I will continue to say that he is one of the truly greatest players in baseball history. It is rare to find someone with all those qualities packed into one man. This is how insane he was: his career stolen base record is nearly 50% above Lou Brock, the man sitting in second place. He also led off 81 games with a home run.
The knocks against him was mainly his ego and the fact that he switched teams 12 times in his career (including four separate stints with Oakland). His loved to refer to himself in the third person and loved the showmanship of being one of the greats. And dude gets to hang his jerseys with the A's, Yankees, Red Sox, Dodgers and Mets on his wall. His "but today, I'm the greatest of all time" speech is one of the most memorable.
Congrats to Rickey. I'm sure he'll be saying that a few times tomorrow.
I hope so since Rickey deserves that. In my lifetime (I'll turn 34 tomorrow), Henderson may be the second best player in baseball (Bonds first). He was a freak on the base-paths as the stud of the stolen base era of baseball. He also hit for power as all those lead-off home runs will attest. He wasn't the greatest fielder but he covered so much ground and did win one Gold Glove in his career. Of course, some of baseball's best clubhouse stories (true or not, eh John Olerud?) have been about Rickey.
Guys like that make the Hall of Fame zing. I'm hoping his bust will have some gold chains on it. Future generations can go to Cooperstown and hear about all that Rickey did and the style of baseball that was played during this time. A man who played during the 1970s, 80s, 90s and 2000s. A man with a seemingly insurmountable 1,406 stolen bases -- including a record 130 in 1982. He played for World Champions in Oakland and Toronto. When he retired, he held the record for walks, runs scored and lead-off home runs. He was the 1990 AL MVP.
Again, I will continue to say that he is one of the truly greatest players in baseball history. It is rare to find someone with all those qualities packed into one man. This is how insane he was: his career stolen base record is nearly 50% above Lou Brock, the man sitting in second place. He also led off 81 games with a home run.
The knocks against him was mainly his ego and the fact that he switched teams 12 times in his career (including four separate stints with Oakland). His loved to refer to himself in the third person and loved the showmanship of being one of the greats. And dude gets to hang his jerseys with the A's, Yankees, Red Sox, Dodgers and Mets on his wall. His "but today, I'm the greatest of all time" speech is one of the most memorable.
Congrats to Rickey. I'm sure he'll be saying that a few times tomorrow.
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