Rickey Nelson Henley Henderson (December 25, 1958 – December 20, 2024), nicknamed "Man of Steal", was an American professional baseball left fielder who played 25 seasons in Major League Baseball (MLB) for nine teams from 1979 to 2003, including four separate tenures with his original team, the Oakland Athletics. He is widely regarded as the greatest leadoff hitter and baserunner in the history of baseball. He holds MLB records for career stolen bases, runs, unintentional walks, and leadoff home runs. At the time of his last major league game in 2003, the 10-time American League (AL) All-Star ranked among the sport's top 100 all-time home run hitters and was its all-time leader in walks. In 2009, he was inducted to the Baseball Hall of Fame in his first year of eligibility.
Henderson holds the single-season record for stolen bases (130 in 1982) and is the only player in AL history to steal 100 bases in a season, having done so three times (in 1980, 1982, and 1983). His 1,406 career steals is nearly 50% higher than the previous record of 938 by Lou Brock. Henderson is the all-time stolen base leader for the Oakland Athletics and previously held the New York Yankees' franchise record from 1988 to 2011. He was among the league's top ten base stealers in 21 different seasons.
Henderson was named the AL's Most Valuable Player (MVP) in 1990, and he was twice the lead-off hitter for World Series champions: the 1989 Oakland Athletics and the 1993 Toronto Blue Jays. A 12-time stolen base champion, Henderson led the league in runs five times. His 25-season career elevated him to the top ten in several other categories, including career at-bats, games, and outfield putouts and total chances. His high on-base percentage, power hitting, and stolen base and run totals made him one of the most dominant and innovative players of all time. He was further known for his passion for playing baseball and a buoyant, eccentric, and quotable personality, famously often referring to himself in the third person, that both perplexed and entertained fans. Once asked if he thought Henderson was a future Hall of Famer, statistician Bill James replied, "If you could split him in two, you'd have two Hall of Famers."
Early life Rickey Nelson Henley Henderson was born on December 25, 1958, in Chicago, Illinois in the back seat of an Oldsmobile on the way to the hospital. Henderson later joked, "I was already fast. I couldn't wait."Rickey Henderson: Leadoff Legend, 2009, MLB Network The son of John L. Henley and Bobbie Henley, he was named Rickey Nelson Henley, after singer-actor Ricky Nelson. When he was two years old, his father moved to Oakland, California. Rickey lived with his grandmother in Pine Bluff, Arkansas, from when he was two until he was seven, when he migrated to Oakland with his family. His father died in an automobile accident 10 years after leaving home. His mother married Paul Henderson in Rickey Henley's junior year of high school and the family adopted the Henderson surname.
As a child in Oakland, Henderson learned to bat right-handed although he was a naturally left-handed thrower—a rare combination for baseball players, especially non-pitchers. Through the 2008 season, only 57 position players are known to have batted right and thrown left in the Major Leagues. Henderson is by far the most successful (and the only one inducted into the Hall of Fame). Henderson later said, "All my friends were right-handed and swung from the right side, so I thought that's the way it was supposed to be done."Henderson et al., Off Base: Confessions of a Thief, pp. 52–53.
In 1976, Henderson graduated from Oakland Technical High School in Oakland, California, where he played baseball, basketball, and football and was an All-American running back with two 1,000-yard rushing seasons. He also ran track, but did not stay with the team as the schedule conflicted with baseball. Henderson received over a dozen scholarship offers to play football. Despite a childhood dream to play for the Oakland Raiders, he turned down the scholarships on the advice of his mother, who argued that football players had shorter careers.
Professional career Draft and minor leagues Henderson was drafted by the Oakland Athletics in the fourth round of the 1976 Major League Baseball draft. For the first season of his minor league career he was with the Boise A's of the Northwest League. In 46 games, he batted .336 and hit three home runs and two triples. Henderson spent the following season with the Modesto A's, where he batted .345 in 134 games during a record-setting season. Henderson, along with Darrell Woodard, nearly broke the league record for team stolen bases. The Modesto A's finished the season with 357 stolen bases, just shy of the league record of 370. While Woodard tied the single-season player record with 90 stolen bases, Henderson beat the record by stealing 95 bases, and was awarded the Sundial Trophy, given to the Modesto A's Most Valuable Player.
Henderson spent the 1978 season with the Jersey City A's of the Eastern League. After the minor league season ended, he played the 1978–1979 winter season for the Navojoa Mayos of the Mexican Pacific League. He played in six games for the team, which won its first championship. In 1979, Henderson started the season with the Ogden A's of the Pacific Coast League. In 71 games for Ogden, he had a batting average of .309 and stole 44 bases.
Oakland Athletics (1979–1984) Henderson made his major league debut with Oakland on June 24, 1979, getting two hits in four at-bats, along with a stolen base. He batted .274 with 33 stolen bases in 89 games. In 1980, Henderson became the third modern-era player to steal 100 bases in a season (Maury Wills stole 104 in 1962, and Lou Brock stole 118 in 1974). His 100 steals broke Eddie Collins's franchise record of 81 in 1910 with the Philadelphia Athletics and set a new American League (AL) record, surpassing Ty Cobb's 96 in 1915. He also batted .303, had 179 hits (tied for ninth in AL), scored 111 runs (fourth in AL), drew 117 walks (second in AL), had a .420 on-base percentage (third in AL), and led the AL by reaching base 301 times.
That winter, Henderson played in the Puerto Rican Professional Baseball League; his 42 stolen bases broke that league's record as well.
Henderson was an MVP candidate a year later, in a season shortened by the 1981 players' strike. He hit .319, fourth in the AL, and led the league in hits (135), runs (89), and steals (56). Henderson was also third in on-base percentage (.408), tied for second in triples (7), fourth in walks (64), eighth in total bases (185), and second in times reaching base (201). In so doing, he became the emblematic figure of Oakland manager Billy Martin's aggressive "Billy Ball" philosophy, which received much media attention. Finishing second to the Milwaukee Brewers' Rollie Fingers in the MVP voting, Henderson earned his only Gold Glove Award in fielding that season. He later became known for his showboat "snatch catches", in which he would flick his glove out at incoming fly balls, then whip his arm behind his back after making the catch.Henderson et al., Off Base: Confessions of a Thief, 1–10
In 1982, Henderson broke Lou Brock's modern major league single season record by stealing 130 bases, a total which has not been approached since. He stole 84 bases by the All-Star break; no player has stolen as many as 84 bases in an entire season since 1988, when Henderson himself stole 93. He also led the AL in walks (116) and was fourth in runs (119) and third in on-base percentage (.398).
Inspired by Dodger leadoff hitter Rudy Law, Henderson adopted an exaggerated crouch as his batting stance, which reduced his strike zone without sacrificing much power. Sportswriter Jim Murray described Henderson's strike zone as being "smaller than Hitler's heart". In 1982, he described his approach to Sports Illustrated:
Regarding Henderson's 1982 season, the mid-1980s book The Hidden Game of Baseball looked at such statistics as 0.78 expected runs with a runner on first and no outs, 1.07 expected runs with runner on second and no outs, and only 0.25 expected runs with no one on and one out. The authors concluded that with Henderson's 130 stolen bases he contributed 22.2 runs to the A's offense. By being caught stealing 42 times, he cost his team 20.6 runs. Therefore, the authors concluded, the net effect of his running activity was merely 1.6 extra runs for the season., James cites the earlier baseball book: See also: which gives a historical overview primarily of the '50s, '60s, and '70s. A later analysis determined his net contribution was 5.3 runs for the season.
In 1983, he led the AL in stolen bases (108) and walks (103) while finishing fourth in runs scored (105). He was also second in on-base percentage (.414), tied for ninth in triples (7), and fifth in times on base, reaching 257 times.
In 1984, Henderson hit 16 home runs while leading the league in stolen bases (66) and finishing second in runs scored (113) and third in on-base-percentage (.399). After the season, he was traded to the New York Yankees along with Bert Bradley for five players: Tim Birtsas, Jay Howell, Stan Javier, Eric Plunk, and José Rijo.
New York Yankees (1985–1989) In his first season with the Yankees, Henderson led the league in runs scored (146) and stolen bases (80), was fourth in batting average (.314), walks (99) and on-base percentage (.419), seventh in slugging (.516), third in OPS (.934). Combining his stolen bases with his 24 home runs, he became the first AL player to join the 20–50 club, and its first member to reach 20–80. He also won the Silver Slugger Award, and was third in the voting for the MVP award. His 146 runs scored were the most since Ted Williams had 150 in 1950, and he became the first player since Jimmie Foxx in 1939 to amass more runs scored than games played. Henderson also became the first player in major league history to reach 80 stolen bases and 20 home runs in the same season. He matched the feat in 1986, as did Eric Davis of the Cincinnati Reds; they remain the only players in major league history to reach those thresholds. It was with the Yankees that Henderson, who had previously worn number 35 with Oakland, which was already taken by his Yankees teammate Phil Niekro, switched to his now famous 24, a number he would wear for the rest of his career (with exceptions: (1) he briefly wore number 14 in 1993 while playing with the Blue Jays, (2) he wore his "old" number 35 in 2000 and 2002 while playing with the Mariners and the Red Sox, and (3) he wore number 25 while playing with the Dodgers). The circles at the top of the article represent the numbers he wore with each team.
In 1986, he led the AL in runs scored (130) and stolen bases (87) for the second year in a row, and was seventh in walks (89) and extra base hits (64) while hitting 28 home runs (9 of which led off games) and recording a career-high 74 runs batted in (RBIs).
In 1987, he had a below-average season by his standards, fueling criticism from the New York media, which had never covered Henderson or his eccentricities kindly.Henderson et al., Off Base: Confessions of a Thief, 90–91, 164–165 Yankees owner George Steinbrenner issued a press release claiming that manager Lou Piniella wanted to trade Henderson for "jaking it" (playing lackadaisically). Still, Henderson had his best on-base percentage to that point in his career (.423), with a .291 batting avg., was fifth in the AL in stolen bases (41) and hit 17 home runs despite playing only 95 games. It was the only season from 1980 to 1991 in which Henderson did not lead the AL in steals. Seattle's Harold Reynolds led the league with 60 steals; Reynolds tells the story of getting an impish phone call from Henderson after the season: