Baseball Hall of Famer and stolen base king Rickey Henderson has died. He was 65 years old. Henderson’s friend and colleague Dave Winfield was among those to announce the sad news, which was later confirmed by the New York Post.
Henderson was born in Chicago on Christmas Day 1958. However, he spent most of his childhood in Oakland. The athletes arrived in the city not long after Henderson, and when he graduated from high school, his hometown team drafted him in the fourth round of the 1976 MLB draft. Three years later, he arrived at the Oakland-Alameda County Coliseum to make his major league debut.
Following a horrendous rookie season, Henderson broke out as a player of the year in 1980. The 21-year-old has shown impressive bat-to-ball skills and a keen eye at the plate, ranking third among professional hitters in walk rate and OBP. Yes, he put that OBP to good use, leading the majors with 100 stolen bases. It was the first of seven times he led the All-Stars in steals. He also made his first 10th All-Star team that summer and finished 10th in the MVP voting that fall. However, in retrospect, he should have finished much higher. According to both FanGraphs and Baseball Reference, the only AL player with a higher MPI that season was MVP George Brett.
More to come…
