And now for some unrelated Met or Yankees news, this Sunday the baseball Hall of Fame will be inducting it's newest members to the Hall of greatness. One character that I will be looking forward to seeing do his thing at the podium is the one and only Rickey Henderson. The self proclaim, Greatest of all time. That was exactly what he said after breaking Lou Brock's stolen base record back in the days. At the time that those comments were echoed by Rickey it was viewed as Rickey being Rickey, and rightly so, maybe Henderson should had used his wording differently when trying to describe is achievements at the moment, but Rickey was only saying what he truly only believed at the moment, that he is and always be the greatest of all time.
This was simply Rickey being Rickey and stating the facts. Looking back to when Rickey was in his prime and doing his things, back in the 80's, at how Rickey Henderson use to operate back in those days, the way he went about his buisness, his swagger, his style, the guy created his own world so much that he use to talk to himself, all this to get his mind right ready and focused, to do whatever it took to win the games which in Rickey's case was to run you to death and be the one man show he really was. Whenever he was on the bases all eyes were on Rickey, the catcher the pitcher, the manager, the fans, everyone know he was going and for the most part every one saw Rickey do it again and again like no player in the history of baseball. I remember Rickey and it was amazing, never again have I seen a guy steer so much fear on the bases like Rickey did, today you see guys like Jose Reyes be the closet thing to Rickey when it comes to stealing bases, but these guys today have nothing on Rickey. I wish that today's baseball players would play the game today like Rickey did, to me Rickey was the ultimate showman, he was the man. Baseball today is a totally different kind of baseball, in those days it was guys like Rickey that captivated you with his unique brand and stlye of baseball that would open your eyes and make you say there goes Rickey.
In those days players would go all out and played the game purely for the love of the game, Today's players are for the most part, a bunch of primadona's, a frase usually attached to Rickey. But being a primadonna in those day and being one in today's baseball is a different kind of primadonna. Today's primadonna are soft, not hard like Rickey, he was hardcore, he was NWA bad, straight out of Compton hard.
Now during his career there was a time when Rickey was also viewed as a player who would be jaking it as the term goes, this was the time when Rickey played for my team at the time, the New York Yankees. This was the time when Yankee owner George Steinbrenner usually talked out of his ass, he would talk about his own star players like Reggie Jackson, Dave Winfield and Rickey himself as players who were not worthy enough for him. Good old George was always right and never wrong back in those days, this was the time when 1st herd of the word jaking it when he describe Henderson who at the time was injured and George thought he was not. What an asshole. But if you look back at Rickey's career, what you would see is that there were not to many players who wanted to play baseball more then him.
But clearly Henderson was in a league of his own, truly this guy did not get the credit he deserved, I remember watching Rickey in his days with the New York Yankees, the years of 85,86,87, and 88. Rickey had just signed with the Yankees to join forces with Don Mattingly and Dave Winfield and it looked like the Yankees were now on track to be the Mighty New York Yankees once again. At the time is was looked at as the missing piece for a Yankee team who had just gotten one of the top 5 players in baseball at the time. With Rickey on board and leading off for the Yankees, it looked like the good days were here again, in his 1st year with the Yanks Rickey helped Donnie baseball get his only MVP when Henderson came home a Yankee record 146 times, Mattingly would tell you that if it weren't for Rickey that he would had not been able to drive in 145 RBI's like he did that year to lead the Major leagues.
When you look closely to what Rickey was able to do in his career, when you look at the numbers and analyze the numbers he accumulated over the years, the numbers are staggering, clearly this dude was one of the greatest but you never know it because of all the bad press he was accustom to receiving which was brought on by Rickey with his self centered way of being, but one has to look past that and see that there will never be another Rickey Henderson. 3 times he stole over a 100 stolen bases in a year, 6 other times over 80, 13 times over 50, and in 1998, at the age of 40 he led the Major leagues with 66 steals. You want more numbers? how about a career OBP of 401, and what about the walks? the guy was a walking machine with an eye of an eagle that pitchers could not throw strikes at because 1 they were usually thinking of the possibilities if Rickey got on base, and 2 because Rickey's strike zone was so small you had to be precise with your pitches.
Rickey was saw as someone who was not liked very much when he played simply because the man was a showman and showing off was part of his game, the guy had style and I love his style,I have no problem when a guy shows off as long as the guy was a player, today you have players like Jose Reyes seen as a guy not liked by his peers just like Rickey was seen in his days as a player, but you just can't please everybody but as a player make sure you have fun and please yourself, and that's what Rickey did. He used this style of baseball playing with his arrogant display of swagger to get into the heads of his opponents and it worked.
No one can match Rickey Henderson when it came to style, any others who attempted to do what Rickey did as far as style goes they fell way short.
Even when Rickey was trying to hang on in the ladder stages of his career when it was clear that his best days were behind him, the guy went on to continue to play games in the minors when he saw that no one wanted him anymore, but because he loved to play the game of baseball he did this because again it was just Rickey being Rickey and he had fun doing so, even though at the time it was seen as Rickey just embarrassing himself instead of looking at it as Rickey doing it for the love of the game. Here was a clear Hall of famer who just wanted to play for ever, even for free. Yea he did some dumb shit backs in the days like the time when he was caught with Bobby Bonilla in 1999 in the Mets locker room playing cards while the Mets were still playing the game which at the time was a playoff game, but that was just another time when Rickey was just being Rickey again. Still I love Rickey for simply being himself, I don't like fakers, this guy was the real deal and was always real right infront of you.
So Congratulations Rickey Henderson, you are truly the greatest leadoff man there ever was!
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