You are going to see, or you have already read, many tributes to Rickey Henderson today.
A lot will discuss his mind-blowing skill on the base paths and how he changed the game in the 1980s. Many will discuss his entertaining personality and how he referred to himself in the third person. Some, like us card bloggers, will talk about his cards -- his rookie card in particular -- and how he became their favorite player.
All of those tributes will seem to lack something in attempting to sum up the man. This one also will fall short.
That's because Rickey Henderson, who passed at age 65, was the greatest I ever saw play. I am always uncertain when people ask me to come up with the best of whatever, musician, artist, designer, inventor, etc. How can you settle on just one? But with Henderson there is no doubt. He was it. I saw it and instantly knew. He's the best damn player I've ever seen.
And how do you explain why he was so great and why he captivated collectors without missing something? His ability, his personality, his baseball cards were so great they defy encapsulation.
Henderson was like a gift to every team in baseball and to every collector. He played for the Oakland A's first, then the Yankees, then the A's again, then Toronto, Oakland a third time, San Diego, the Angels, Oakand a fourth time, the Mets, Mariners, San Diego again, Boston and my Dodgers. He sprinkled a little bit of himself, his greatness on each team and fans of each lapped it up. Collectors of respective teams couldn't wait to get their hands on Rickey cards with their team. I know I couldn't.
Rickey Henderson meant -- means -- so much to so many because of how many teams he played for, because of his thrill and daring and that mind-bending stance at home plate that captivated us all. His career spanned a long time -- from 1979-2003 -- which means more than one generation could claim them as one of theirs.
I know for my generation, I'm a Gen Xer, Rickey Henderson was one of the first major league players that we could call our own. There were a few guys like that -- Eddie Murray, Andre Dawson, Ozzie Smith, even Robin Yount and George Brett for an older Xer like me.
But Henderson was different.
I used to have three of Henderson's rookie card. That's how much I collected in 1980. I have just the one now.
We knew right away that this card was something special. This was way before Bowman was tracking players from the time they were teenagers and countless prospect websites throwing out projections every week. We saw what he did in his first year in 1979 and, wow, look at what he was doing the very year we were pulling his card out in packs! One hundred stolen bases?????? WHAT? Only guys named Lou Brock and Maury Wills could do stuff like that.
Henderson was just getting started and we knew that, too. That's why Rickey Henderson's rookie card was the biggest rookie card around at the time. It is the card that launched the rookie card craze as far as I was concerned. People can cite the '83 Gwynn, Boggs and Sandberg and the '84 Mattingly, even the '82 Ripken, but the excitement of those cards had to start somewhere and I say it started with 1980 Rickey Henderson.
Not only is it the first card of a future Hall of Famer but the photo does such a good job of conveying one element (there were so many) of what made him unique. How does he hit like that? Long before Upper Deck made their job photos "that show why this player is interesting," Topps got one really right with Rickey (too bad they didn't do the same with Mark Fidrych).
The most excitement that Rickey Henderson generated, I think, was in 1982 when he broke Brock's single-season stolen base record. That was the year I put together a scrapbook of the entire MLB season. I would chronicle every week of the season, cutting out newspaper clippings of each notable moment of the season and breaking out big moments with big displays.
Henderson dominated that scrapbook. I counted down the number of stolen bases he needed to reach the record page by page. And when he finally reached it, I displayed that clipping as big as I could. I was proud of that thing (wish I still had it). I was impressed with the feat.
It was a lot of fun pulling his cards the very next year. I loved 1983 Topps and all of the Henderson cards in the set were gems.
This is a Dodgers fan speaking. I was a teenager on the East Coast. Oakland was a long way away. But I couldn't get enough of how Henderson played, I always had an affinity for base stealers.
Henderson joining the Yankees disappointed me and took some shine off, but he didn't stay there for too long. There were lots of thrills to come. I still remember his antics on the bases with the Blue Jays during the postseason, he really livened up what I considered dull World Series matchups for me during this period.
More records created more memorable cards and more fans as cards and fans and writers and everybody struggled to describe his continued greatness.
I have written about Rickey Henderson a lot on my blog. It's even surprising to me since he barely played for my favorite team and I tend not to follow around players on other teams just because they are stars, remaining faithful to my team. But that's the power this player had.
I know all about his hijinks, his controversy with the Mets (it always comes out with the Mets), but it just didn't matter. I kept writing about him with affection, trying to get across my appreciation. And I displayed his cards, too. Just a few:
I have so many more.
In my time as a blogger I've come across many Rickey Henderson fans and collectors, much more devoted than I am (I have never actively collected his cards -- most have arrived in my pursuit of sets or Dodgers). I feel for them at this time. I don't know what it's like to experience the passing of my favorite player, though I know it's coming.
I'll continue to write about Henderson's cards and I know there are more out there that I want. It will all be done in a bid to grab a piece of the greatest player that I ever saw. I wasn't around to see Mays or Clemente or Ted Williams. But Henderson made my jaw drop.
I was speechless. Because how can you sum up what he just did?
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