Rickey Henderson, MLB’s stolen-base king, dies at 65

Rickey Henderson, the Hall of Famer who colorfully combined style, flash and an unrivaled brilliance on the basepaths to become one of the defining players of his generation, died on Friday, according to various reports, including from The New York Times. Henderson was 65.
The Times report cited Dave Winfield, a friend and former teammate who posted a remembrance about Henderson on social media, though he did not give additional details about Henderson’s death. But the league, the Oakland A’s and Henderson’s family were expected to release statements.
Widely known as MLB’s best leadoff hitter , Henderson holds the all-time record for stolen bases and runs scored, the crown jewels of the many achievements collected over a 25-year career that in 2009 led to induction in Cooperstown.
A 10-time All-Star, Henderson set the record for most stolen bases in a single season with 130 for the Oakland Athletics in 1982. But speed wasn’t the only part of Henderson’s repertoire. He also holds the MLB record for most leadoff home runs with 81.
A mercurial personality who charmed and befuddled fans and teammates, occasionally referred to himself in the third person, and inspired a seemingly endless store of tall and sometimes apocryphal tales, Henderson played for nine teams, finishing with 3,055 hits, 1,406 stolen bases and 2,295 runs. But he will always be most closely associated with the Athletics, making his major-league debut with the franchise in 1979, in the city that had been his home since he was 7 years old.
Henderson starred unapologetically in an era when baseball pushed back hard against individuality. He knew he was the best, and wasn’t afraid to voice it, as he did shortly after eclipsing Lou Brock’s record for stolen bases on May 1, 1991. That’s when Henderson declared: “Today, I am the greatest of all time.”
As Joe Posnanski noted in his profile in The Athletic’s “The Baseball 100” series in 2020, Henderson was born on Christmas Day in 1958, in the back seat of an Oldsmobile speeding toward the hospital. “I was already fast,” he said. He was named Rickey Nelson Henley after Ricky Nelson, the teen music sensation from the television show “The Adventures of Ozzie and Harriet.” He’d add Henderson as his surname as a teenager after his stepfather, Paul Henderson.
Football was Rickey’s game as a teenager, not baseball. He was, by all accounts, an awe-inspiring running back whose dream was to play for the Oakland Raiders, but Henderson’s mother Bobbie insisted he play baseball. She wasn’t the only one who helped him along that path.
At his Hall of Fame induction speech in 2009, Henderson spoke of his high school guidance counselor, Tommie Wilkerson, who offered him a quarter for every hit, stolen base and run scored. He noted that he quickly recorded 30 hits, 25 runs and 33 steals, adding up to $22.
“Not bad money for a high school kid,” he said.
Henderson was one of the sport’s most interesting characters. His feats on the field and personality off it generated so many legends that it was often hard for fans and even fellow players to discern which were actually true.
“My favorite story, the one most people ask me about, is me signing a contract with a million-dollar bonus and instead of going to the bank and cashing it, I took the million-dollar check and put it on the wall,” Henderson said. “So each and every day, I passed by that wall and it reminded myself, ‘I am a millionaire.’”
Henderson attained those riches with his hometown team, the A’s. But two years after his record-setting season in 1982, he was traded to the New York Yankees, where he spent four-and-a-half seasons before being sent back to Oakland halfway through the 1989 season.
Henderson went on to win the 1989 ALCS MVP in a 4-1 series win over the Toronto Blue Jays, hitting two home runs in a Game 4 win at the Skydome. The A’s would then go on to sweep the crosstown San Francisco Giants in a World Series best remembered for the Loma Prieta earthquake before Game 3. Henderson led the A’s to another AL pennant in 1990, earning his lone MVP award that season, leading the league in runs scored, stolen bases and on-base percentage.
In July 1993, Henderson was traded to the Blue Jays, where he struggled during the regular season and playoffs, but earned his second World Series ring and scored on Joe Carter’s series-winning home run in Game 6.
Henderson played his final major-league game at age 44 on Sept. 19, 2003, as a member of the Los Angeles Dodgers, the final destination of a series of stops in his 40s that included the Mets, Mariners, Padres, Red Sox and even the independent league Newark Bears. His 3,081 major-league games played ranks fourth all-time.
Yet Henderson never ventured too far from Oakland. He re-signed with the A’s the following offseason, playing his third stint with the team in 1994 and 1995 before a fourth stop in 1998. When the team said its final goodbyes to the Coliseum this past season, Henderson was front and center. He caught the ceremonial first pitch from his daughter Adrianna on his ceremonial bobblehead night before a September game versus the Yankees. And he was in attendance for the entire final homestand versus the Texas Rangers, joining former teammates to say farewell to the team in Oakland. Along with former childhood and A’s teammate Dave Stewart, the pair threw out collective first pitches before the team’s final home game.
Henderson’s prowess on the basepaths will be his most lasting legacy. He owns the career steals record by a wide margin, with his 1,406 stolen bases towering over Brock at second place with 938. Among active players, Starling Marte tops the list with 354. Henderson paid close attention to MLB’s rule changes ahead of the 2023 season, telling The Athletic’s Britt Ghiroli in March of that year that he would have stolen even more bases in his career had the larger bags, shorter distances between bases and limited disengagements been in effect when he played.
Just how many?
“Oh, I’d say 1,600 or 1,700,” Henderson said. “I do have 1,406.”