Speaker 1: You may not be able to throw at football like
Speaker 1: a certain player, but you wanted to be like them.
Speaker 1: You may have never been able to get to the
Speaker 1: height of the sport that they played, but that didn't
Speaker 1: mean you weren't going to imitate them. Imitate them on
Speaker 1: a number of different occasions. There are a lot of
Speaker 1: athletes for me, but there are certain athletes that define
Speaker 1: your childhood, and for me, one of those athletes. One
Speaker 1: of them was Ricky Henderson. He passed away at the
Speaker 1: age of sixty five over the weekend. Greatest leadoff hitter
Speaker 1: of all time, and I don't think it's close. And
Speaker 1: he's also the greatest base dealer of all time, and
Speaker 1: I know it's not close. Four hundred and six career
Speaker 1: stolen bases never be touched. One hundred and thirty steals
Speaker 1: back in nineteen eighty two is a single season record
Speaker 1: will never be matched. Twelve times he led the major
Speaker 1: leagues in stolen bases. That will not be surpassed. He
Speaker 1: ended his career scoring two two hundred and ninety five runs.
Speaker 1: He ended his career with two one hundred and ninety walks.
Speaker 1: He belted two hundred and ninety seven homers that I
Speaker 1: don't think gets nearly enough. Pub He hit eighty one
Speaker 1: homers to lead off a game, which again will not
Speaker 1: be duplicated, and his one hundred eleven career war wins
Speaker 1: above replacement won eleven point one to be exact third
Speaker 1: most ever by a player in the last twenty five years,
Speaker 1: only surpassed by Barry Bonds and a rod which has
Speaker 1: a little bit of taint to it, you know what
Speaker 1: I mean. He collected over three thousand hits, really impressive
Speaker 1: and was a first ballot Hall of Famer. On the
Speaker 1: Hall of Fame, he was listed on ninety four point
Speaker 1: eight percent of the ballots in two thousand and nine.
Speaker 1: There's actually more than one person out there. Some idiot
Speaker 1: chose not to vote for Ricky Henderson, some moron, somebody
Speaker 1: who claims to know baseball, somebody who thinks they follow baseball,
Speaker 1: somebody who feels like they have a larger impact on
Speaker 1: the game than the guy who did all those accomplishments
Speaker 1: that I just told you about, in addition to other
Speaker 1: things that I'll soon inform you of, felt like, hmm,
Speaker 1: I don't think he's a Hall of Famer. Somebody actually
Speaker 1: took that stance somebody had a ballot in front of
Speaker 1: him and saw Ricky Henderson, and before you vote, at
Speaker 1: least you said, you have a pretty good idea of
Speaker 1: what this guy's all about. You don't want to dive
Speaker 1: into the ten time All Star. That's fine. How about
Speaker 1: the fact that this dude was a two time World
Speaker 1: Series Champion. How about the fact that this dude was
Speaker 1: a League MVP. How about this fact that this dude
Speaker 1: had all those numbers I've already told you about war career, steals,
Speaker 1: home runs, hits. What was it about his resume that
Speaker 1: somebody more than one felt like, can't do it, can't
Speaker 1: put him on that ballot today? I digress. Yes, he
Speaker 1: was boisterous, Yes he was self promo. Yes, I don't
Speaker 1: think there's another athlete who's used themself in the third
Speaker 1: person like Ricky Henderson. But he was a special talent,
Speaker 1: There's no doubt about it. As soon as he came
Speaker 1: out of Oakland Tech High School, which by the way,
Speaker 1: also gave us Kurt Flood of Major League Baseball, Joe
Speaker 1: Morgan of Major League Baseball, Veda Pinson of Major League Baseball,
Speaker 1: Frank Robinson of Major League Baseball, Dave Stewart of Major
Speaker 1: League Baseball, Lloyd Mosby of Major League Baseball, Gary Pettis
Speaker 1: of Major League Baseball. All from that one high school.
Speaker 1: It gave you seven other impactful Major League Baseball players.
Speaker 1: I might be pushing it a little bit with Lloyd Mosby,
Speaker 1: but you get he still played Toronto Detroit played quite
Speaker 1: a bit. On top of that, there were two NBA
Speaker 1: the players who came out of Oakland Tech High School,
Speaker 1: Paul Silas, Seattle primarily and turned out to be a
Speaker 1: pretty good coach. Oh and Bill Russell, one of the
Speaker 1: best players of all time. That high school, Oakland Tech
Speaker 1: High School in Oakland, California, gave you all those players.
Speaker 1: Was Ricky Henderson the best? No, it was not. Frank Robinson.
Speaker 1: Bill Russell, you would argue, are the two best athletes
Speaker 1: coming out at least of those names that I've mentioned.
Speaker 1: Sometimes there are better high school players than pros. I mean,
Speaker 1: sometimes guys in high school were as good, if not
Speaker 1: better than the guys who ended up being elite professionals.
Speaker 1: Don't have very often, but once in a while you'll
Speaker 1: find that. But Ricky Henderson is a piece of my
Speaker 1: childhood that was really important because oftentimes when we were kids,
Speaker 1: we would imitate baseball players when we go. We would
Speaker 1: ride our bikes, put the glove through the handlebars or
Speaker 1: glove through the bat the handle of the bat, and
Speaker 1: bag our lunch and head up to the local field
Speaker 1: and play baseball. Every day in the summer, right field
Speaker 1: is out, sometimes left field was out, just so you
Speaker 1: could hit the other way. That's what we did. And
Speaker 1: we would bring the helmets we used to get for
Speaker 1: five bucks at Tiger Stadium. As you go out there
Speaker 1: and while everybody was collecting every single Tiger helmet, we
Speaker 1: would collect every helmet in baseball and we would put
Speaker 1: them on a bench and we would pick one up,
Speaker 1: and then we had to imitate the player we thought
Speaker 1: exemplified that franchise, that team, and for the Oakland A's
Speaker 1: a lot of times, not always, because sometimes it was
Speaker 1: Reggie Jackson, sometimes it was Joe Rudy, sometimes it was
Speaker 1: Joe Morgan, sometimes it was Gene ten, sometimes it was
Speaker 1: Sal Bando, anytime it was Oakland. Eventually somebody would say
Speaker 1: Ricky Henderson, right, he was after that crew. Of course
Speaker 1: that crew was even before Ricky Henderson, but I mean
Speaker 1: all those guys so many great players who played for
Speaker 1: that franchise, and Ricky Henderson was among, if not the
Speaker 1: best to play for that franchise. Now, again, he played
Speaker 1: in a different era of the guys I just mentioned,
Speaker 1: but I'm talking about as you know, childhood. That was
Speaker 1: part of it. And I feel bad for people who
Speaker 1: didn't get a chance to watch him play. Now the
Speaker 1: games weren't on every single day like they are these days.
Speaker 1: And yes, you've had a chance to go back and
Speaker 1: check things out on YouTube perhaps, and that would be
Speaker 1: my hope, right, But he truly was one of the
Speaker 1: greatest players of all time. All the things that he's
Speaker 1: done on on the field of play warrant all the
Speaker 1: attention that he's gotten, but you can't necessarily appreciate it
Speaker 1: unless you either a watched him in person or b
Speaker 1: followed his career as it was taking place and spent
Speaker 1: fourteen years in Oakland in the Hall of Fame career
Speaker 1: that spanned a lot of other teams of course, with
Speaker 1: the Yankees and the Blue Jays and a number of
Speaker 1: other teams a Red Sox for a period of time
Speaker 1: as well. But Ricky Henderson, at the age of sixty five,
Speaker 1: gone away too soon.