Category: Oakland Athletics

Someone who knows about wearing the number 24 former Seattle Mariner Ken Griffey Jr pays tribute to former Oakland A’s great the late Rickey Henderson at the Oakland Arena on Sat Feb 1, 2025 (AP News photo)

Saturday, February 1, 2025

By Lewis Rubman

OAKLAND–There were many Rickey Henderson’s. Setting aside his various personae before he reached the major leagues, there was as a different Rickey each time he ping ponged between the Oakland Athletics, for whom he played in 1979-84, 1989-93, 1994-95), and 1998), and the New York Yankees (1985-89), Toronto Blue Jays (1993 until his mid-season return to the A’s in ’94), San Diego Padres (1996-97 and 2001), Anaheim Angels (1997), New York Mets (1999-2000), Seattle Mariners ((2000), Boston Red Sox (2002), and Los Angeles Dodgers (2023).

This afternoon, a crowd that filled at least 95% of the Oakland Arena, across Championship Plaza from what had been Rickey Henderson Field. met to celebrate the life and honor of the multifarious Rickey Henderson That geographic irony didn’t go unmentioned by the long list of speakers who eulogized the different Rickeys.

The raw 20 year old 1979, morphed into the superstar of 1980-84 who first broke the major league record for stolen bases in 1982 and kept on breaking it with each bag he pilfered until he retired with 1,406, a record that still stands.

A lead off hitter who still managed to blast 297 lifetime home runs and drive in 1,115 runs., The Man of Steal, patented the Rickey Run, and left the game having come home safely 2,295 times. Rickey also was the retired major leaguer who wouldn’t quit, the one time hot dog who doggedly kept playing into his mid forties in the independent Atlantic and Golden Leagues and became a respected mentor of the generations of A’s who followed him.

There also was Rickey Henderson who cared more about having his worth recognized more than he cared about the riches that recognition brought with it.. Rather than cash his million dollar bonus check for the 1983 season, he framed it and kept it hanging on the wall until the A’s business office phoned him to ask if he’d ever received the document

There was the Rickey who, upon setting a new record in 1982 for career stolen bases infamously said, Lou Brock was a great base stealer but today I am the greatest.” His critics (I was one until I learned more) conveniently overlooked Rickey qualifying introductory phrase. Then there was the Rickey who closed his Hall of Fame speech by declaring “I am now in the class of the greatest players of all time. And at this moment, I am very, very humble.”

The assembled multitude was greeted by Shooty Babbit, an old teammate who served as the principal master of ceremonies. The commentator and scout lost no time in declaring Henderson the “greatest of all time” before introducing Bip Roberts, who remembered The Man of Steal as his “high school hero.” He recounted when, as an adolescent, he asked his hero for an autograph and the answer he got, “There’s a time and a place for everything.” As time went by, Bip Roberts came to think of Rickey as his ‘big brother who never spoke about how great he was.”

Next came Bishop Gregory Bernard Payton of the Greater St. John’s Missionary Baptist Church, who ended his prayer by thanking God “for lending us Rickey this short time.” Bishop Payton’s son, NBA hall of famer and a friend of Rickey since childhood, emphasized at the close of his eulogy that Henderson had made his mark “here, in Oakland, California.”

Dave Winfield, a teammate on the Yankees, remembered telling Rickey, then still a prospect ,that he’d been tearing them up in the minors, to which Rickey replied, “I’m gonna tear ’em up here, too.” Winfield added, “Every day he came to work with joy.” It’s also been told, although Winfield didn’t mention it, that when Henderson was living in New York, he praised the view from his condo, which had a great view of “The Entire State Building.”

Sandy Alderson declared, “I don’t like to be known as the guy who traded Rickey Henderson [pause] twice. I’d like to be called the guy who brought him back.” The ex GM of the A’s got in a sly dig at the current ownership by adding as he closed, “in 1990, he was the highest paid player in baseball. Imagine that [another, more dramatic, pause] in Oakland.”

Ken Griffey, Jr. confided in his 20 some odd close friends of the afternoon, “Rickey was my brother, my older brother. Sometimes I think he was my , . . father,” concluding that he “changed baseball forever.”

Dave Stewart, recently returned to the Athletics’ fold as a special assistant for player development, commented, “Rickey had a way of making life more fun” and exhorted us to “Love him. live your life fully, because that’s what Rickey did.”

It was difficult to follow the long, emphatic memories of Rickey’s oldest friend, Fred Atkins, who shouted, sometimes into the microphone, sometimes moving out of its range. I was able to catch his declaration, “Rickey was a star on Broadway, in Oakland.”

The crowd booed when Renel Brooks-Moon, the one-time Giants public address announcer, who shared M.C.duties, reading the Henderson family’s thank you letter to the Athletics for organizing and hosting the afternoon’s commemoration, read “John Fisher. Brooks-Moon immediately shot back, “Not today! Not today! This is Rickey’s!” A class act that quieted the crowd and was, in itself, a tribute to Rickey Henderson and a rebuke to John Fisher.”

The festivities ended with the gospel singing of Charlie Finley’s protegge M.C. Hammer and his wife, Stephanie.

photo by Mauricio Segura

Thank you, Rickey

by Mauricio Segura

It’s been 24 hours since I got the news of Rickey’s passing. In that time, I’ve tried to unpack my thoughts and feelings, but they’re still a mess of nondescript silence and swirling emotion. Rickey Henderson was, no, he IS my baseball hero. He’s the reason I discovered and fell in love with the beautiful game at the age of 10. He’s the reason I pursued a career in baseball. He’s the reason I am now a sports journalist. Rickey…IS…baseball to me. Losing the A’s from Oakland this year already tore my heart to pieces, but losing Rickey—my baseball hero—is a feeling I can’t even begin to describe. At least I know I’m not the only one feeling it.

SEVEN! Seven is the number of one-on-one conversations we shared (according to my journal). Sure, I saw him more than that, so many more times, but those other encounters were just a handshake, a fist bump, or a simple hello.

A former pitcher and all-around nice guy I respect immensely, Gio Gonzalez, introduced me to Rickey for the first time in 2011. I don’t remember that initial conversation very well because, even though I was keeping my cool on the outside, my 12-year-old self was totally freaking out on the inside. It took all my energy not to let it show. I mean, I went to hundreds of games between 1984 and 2003 just to see this legend play. Never in my wildest dreams did I think I’d actually meet him, let alone have multiple one-on-one conversations. Yet, there I was, standing no more than five feet from him and he was talking to me. For the next 13 years after that, we’d have six more one on one interactions. Only one lasted for more than 10 minutes, but they were each memorable.

I doubt he ever remembered my name, even though I reminded him each time. But that didn’t matter, he always treated me like someone he’d known for years. He’d joke, talk smack, and show genuine interest in what I had to say. I think he treated everyone that way; it’s just who he was. We all knew we were in the presence of baseball greatness, but in ten seconds, he brought you in, and for that moment, you were equals—buddies.

The most memorable and longest conversation we ever had was in the player parking lot after a game in 2019. We both happened to walk out of the tunnel at the same time, and he noticed I was limping. He asked if I was okay; I told him I’d rolled my ankle. Somehow, that led to us chatting by his car for thirty minutes. I picked his brain about what it was like to be Rickey: his days in the minors, the highs and lows of fame, his strategies for stealing and hitting, Billy Martin vs. Tony La Russa, and even what might have happened if he’d been allowed to play both NFL and MLB, and much more. Everything I’d ever wondered about, I asked with the rapid fire of a machine gun, and he answered everything! And it wasn’t some formal interview—just a really cool conversation. He even asked about my life at one point, which blew my mind. I’m forever grateful he gave me that moment. I’m not a betting man, but I’m pretty sure he enjoyed it as well.

I was 12 years old when my dad and uncle took me to my first baseball game: June 24, 1984, A’s vs. Rangers. We sat in field-level section 130, left field. I watched Rickey like a hawk – how he got ready between pitches, how he snagged flies like a magician. It was the first time I saw him make one of his signature snatch catches, pure perfection. And his batting stance? To me, it always looked like an F-117 Stealth Bomber at takeoff: sleek, low, powerful, and fast. Unfortunately, he didn’t get on base that day and didn’t steal any bags, but he came up in the 9th, tied 2-2 with a man on second, and took a 1-2 pitch high and deep over the left-field fence for a walk-off home run. Right then, I wanted to be a ballplayer and roam center field next to him. It’s funny how life works. I never made it to the show as a player, but I did make it there as a journalist, and I stood right next to him on that same field many times.

On May 1, 1991, I skipped school to sit in the upper deck behind first base and watch him steal #939. I’ll never forget that day. It was well worth the Saturday detention!

Baseball changed when Rickey retired. The magic I felt since I was 12 years old just wasn’t the same. I still loved the game, and I always will, but it never again felt quite like it did when he was on the field. I didn’t attend a single MLB game from 2004 to 2010. I finally went back as a sports writer in 2011. I met Rickey, and although he was no longer a player, he was there, and that was cool. Now he’s gone…and, well…

I last spoke to him prior to the A’s vs Yankees game on September 20th. He was on the field with his daughter who threw out the first pitch. I walked by him, he saw me and smiled, we shook hands. “How ya feeling?” I asked. “Amazing!” he replied. Then prior to the A’s last game at the Coliseum ( a somber day in itself) on the 26th, I was walking towards the dugout, he was walking towards me to the clubhouse. We exchanged a look, no words, a smile, a fist bump, and we kept walking.

What can I say. I’m beyond sad that I will never see him again. But I find comfort in the fact that I met my baseball hero and had multiple memorable interactions. What more could I really ask for?

Rest easy, Rickey. Thank you.

Photo, taken Mauricio Segura- 2015