“Rickey Henderson’s strike zone is smaller than Hitler’s heart.” Jim Murray
“If you could split him in two, you’d have two Hall of Famers.” Bill James
I know the Baseball Hall of Fame is sometimes hard to take seriously. Forget some of the less-than-deserving players in there, that’s bound to happen in any museum, but Tom Yawkey has a plaque. When I was last there, it was placed directly above Bob Gibson’s plaque, an unintentional joke that reminded me of In the Heat of the Night. At the same time, talking about the Baseball Hall of Fame is a lot of fun, even something to take seriously.
After all, who really knows how to evaluate the career of an offensive lineman? How many points does a small forward have score in his career to be considered for Springfield? In baseball, we have numbers that go a long way in helping us understand just how great a player has been. We have benchmarks. We have personality and we have politics. We have facts and we have our memories. We have plenty to talk about.
Jay Jaffe and Cliff Corcoran join me in breaking down the upcoming Hall of Fame vote. We talk about the shoo-in, one of the greatest players I’ve ever seen, Rickey Henderson, who had the flake to go along with athletic brilliance. Then we cover a couple of sleepers–Tim Raines and Alan Trammell.
When Rickey, Mattingly, and Winfield occupied the first three spots in the Yankees' batting order, scoring at least a run in the 1st inning was almost a certainty.
I was a 1988 Topps Rickey baseball card for Halloween one year. My mom painted the front of it (it was awesome), and she and I did the back. Damn thing had bazilliions of stats on it- if I recall correctly, they showed all the way back to Rickey's minor league days in Modesto. Took us forever.
I wore it again in college one year- I should see if it's still kicking around somewhere and post a pic...
Actually, it was more often Rickey, Willie Randolph, Donnie, and Winnie, but yes, it was, and I wish I had mentioned that in the clip above, but we're really pressed for time in these things. Seems every game Henderson would walk or single and steal second, Randolph would hit behind him to push him to third, and the Yanks would then have their two best hitters up to try to get him home. The exceptions were Rickey's record-setting leadoff homers and when Rickey stole second *and* third and Willie drove him home.
Another story I wish I had time for was the time I saw Rickey playing with the Newark Bears. I got my money's worth three batters into the game as, I kid you not, Rickey led off with a walk, stole second, and scored on two productive outs. I have photos somewhere. I'll see if I can turn them up.
I forgot about Willie. The amount of partying I did back then has apparently taken its toll on my memory.
Rickey's "snatch catch" was pretty entertaining as well, much more so than Rickey always referring to himself in the third person.
My story on Rickey playing for the independent San Diego Surf Dawgs is here:
http://catfishstew.baseballtoaster.com/archives/187010.html
He pretty much did what Cliff described in that Newark Bears game. He walked three times, stole second twice, pressured the pitcher to balk him to second once, and in between hit a home run for good measure.
David Cross did a bit about Henderson always referring to himself in the third person, but it drove me nuts because Cross totally botched it, in part because he failed to realize the Rickey sounds exactly like Mr. T. when doing his impression, but mainly because his "Rickey" referred to himself as "Rickey Henderson" rather than just "Rickey." A thoroughly disappointing and poorly executed comedy bit, it was as if someone else had suggested the idea and he did the bit without knowing anything else about Henderson other than that he was a baseball player who referred to himself in the third person, like Bob Dole did.
[3] '85 was a frustrating season. The Yanks had one of the best 1-to-4 combinations in the history of the game, but they were offset at the back end by Baylor (.231/.330/.430, and non-existent against righties), Pagliarulo (.239/.334/.442), Wynegar (.223/.356/.320 -- I was surprised to see how much better Hassey was) and Meacham (.218/.322/.266 with subpar defense). Similarly, on the pitching side, Guidry was offset by Whitson.
Ah, 1985 and the September dive. I remember it well. Bad September home stand. Blamed Billy. They won a lot of games that year, but not when they needed to. Sad. Donny Baseball could have had a ring.
HOF debates are way too much fun. I am solidly onside with Rock Raines and Alan Trammell, both. I am also of the Blyleven's Being Robbed persuasion. It is hard for me to filter BoSox dislike enough to properly assess Jim Rice, but my instinct is that he's borderline and that there are worse players in there. I loved Andre Dawson but he never took a walk, did he. Look at the obp sometime.
[7] I was at the Sept. 12 series opener against Toronto, when Hassey's grand slam capped off a 6-run 7th inning rally to move the Yanks within 1-1/2. A division tite seemed inevitible. The next night was painful. Neikro, going for his 300th win, was brilliant, but a Hassey passed ball (on strike 3) and error along with a rare Mattingly error lead to three unearned runs and a 3-2 loss (Henderson was picked off 1st in the effort, and I seem to recall a baserunning blunder by Mattingly as well, though it doesn't show up in baseball-reference.com). From that point, everything fell through, as the Blue Jays won on Saturday and Sunday and never looked back. Neikro was brutal from that point on, not winning #300 until the last game of the season against a Toronto AAA lineup.
By the way, Randolph batted 2nd (in the starting lineup) in only 27 games that year:
Leadoff - 13 games
2nd - 27
5th - 3
6th - 30
7th - 58
8th -10
Mattingly started in the #2-hole 58 times, Griffey 62 times, Meacham (yikes!) 8 times, Wynegar and Omar Moreno twice each and Juan Bonilla and Scott Bradley once each.
The most common front 4 was Henderson-Griffey-Mattingly-Winfield (57 games) followed by Henderson-Mattingly-Winfield-Baylor (46 games). Billy went with Henderson-Randolph-Mattingly-Winfield only 21 times (April 23-28, May 30-June 7 and 7 scattered dates). He used Henderson-Mattingly-Winfield-Griffey 9 times (all in August).
Ah, but I'm sure you all missed (for the most part) his hey-days in OAK. The Rickey, Gallego, Lansford, Bash Bros. was a great time to be fostering a love for baseball.