From the archives: Even at 50, Rickey Henderson was crammed with vitality

Editor’s word: This story initially revealed on Dec. 24, 2008. Rickey Henderson died this weekend at 65. He would have turned 66 on Christmas Day.

The indicators must be there.

As baseball’s all-time best leadoff hitter shuffles off the bed this morning, it could make him solely regular if life’s little reminders tapped him on the shoulder as an observance of his half-century on the planet.

In any case, 50 years depart indicators of wear and tear and tear. Those that have reached the large five-oh can attest to it. Fifty means combating stiff muscular tissues, achy joints and wrinkled pores and skin. It’s the truth of grey or thinning hair, the feeling of lowered vitality.

This stuff, you’d assume, is perhaps tugging at Rickey Henley Henderson this morning.

Then once more, has there ever actually been something to recommend that Henderson is a part of the conventional world? Even his beginning — in Chicago on a snowy Christmas morning within the again seat of a ’57 Chevy along with his mom, Bobbi, staring up at a star — hinted that somebody distinctive was at hand.

So it’s that the person who has scored extra runs and stolen extra bases than every other major-league participant most likely received’t shuffle off the bed at the moment a lot as he’ll explode out of it, sliding headfirst.

“He’s got too much energy,” Bobbi Henderson says, laughing on the thought. “That’s how he was as a kid. He liked to run a lot. He was a busy little boy. He had too much energy then, and he’s got too much energy now.”

It appears sports activities had been created with athletes comparable to Henderson in thoughts. “Genetically gifted,” as former teammate and childhood good friend Dave Stewart places it, Henderson was constructed to excel at every part he tried, and in baseball, he discovered an avenue for his vitality.

It stored him occupied on the highest stage of his career for 25 years, and offered the stage for which he may showcase his abilities “and his foibles,” as longtime Giants and A’s broadcaster Lon Simmons says. However as a person ages, we have a tendency to recollect what he has achieved alongside the way in which, not essentially the missteps he sometimes took to get there.

So what stands out as Rickey blows out his candles and braces for his election to baseball’s Corridor of Fame on Jan. 7 — “How is he not unanimous?” former teammate Dave Henderson requested earlier this yr — will not be simply the two,295 runs and 1,406 steals. There are additionally the two,190 walks (second solely to Barry Bonds’ 2,558), the 297 house runs (“He could’ve hit 400 had he been needed in that role,” St. Louis Cardinals supervisor Tony La Russa says) and the 81 house runs to guide off a recreation. Look behind his baseball card, and also you’re reminded that he hit .279 and picked up 3,055 hits and 510 doubles, all whereas taking part in 3,081 video games.

After which the query arises: What’s a 50-year-old man to do with such vitality?

“He’s not slowing down, I can tell you that,” says Fred Atkins, considered one of Henderson’s closest pals since childhood.

It appears corralling the person remains to be darn close to an not possible job.

“I try to teach the young kids,” Henderson says, when he takes a second to decelerate. “How they can steal and slide, and save some wear and tear on their bodies. I’d love to do more, because I just stopped playing the game, and when you love the game so much, it’s a part of you.”

That mentioned, the free time is sweet, too. Who hasn’t spent a lifetime along with his highschool sweetheart (Pamela, whom Rickey married just a few years again) or raised three kids (daughters Angela, 22, Alexa, 17, and Adriann, 15), and never been in love with the idea of free time?

“Very devoted family man,” Stewart says. “The reason you didn’t hear and don’t hear very much about his family life is that unlike most of us, Rickey did a great, great job of keeping his family protected. … He’s a great dad, but you can’t forget Pam. She’s been very, very supportive of everything Rickey did in this game. She’s a strong mother, and kept her own life in order.”

Henderson has made his house in Hillsborough for a number of years “but comes across the bridge” to his Oakland roots “all the time,” Bobbi says. He additionally owns a ranch close to Yosemite, the place he goes “to get away in the peace and quiet,” Atkins says. Usually, each say, he opens these doorways to underprivileged kids “to show them that if they put their mind to it, anything is possible,” Atkins says.

“He likes fishing. He has that ranch in Yosemite,” Bobbi says. “He likes kicking back, playing dominoes, watching football and being just a regular, normal guy.”

And but, a person has vitality. And 50 is hardly time for the retirement house. Bear in mind, that is a person whose lasting picture won’t be a lot his strike zone — “as small as Hitler’s heart,” legendary sportswriter Jim Murray put it — however fingers wiggling, legs bent, eyes honing in on the pitcher just like the scope on a rifle.

This can be a man who appreciated to face in entrance of mirrors, bare, gazing on the physique that at the moment doesn’t look a lot totally different, all whereas saying, “Rickey’s the best.” This can be a man whose ego usually was a much bigger story than his skill — and to reply Dave Henderson’s query, that’s why the vote received’t be unanimous. It’s a participant who discovered himself on 9 groups, together with the A’s on 4 separate events.

Suppose he didn’t rub just a few people the unsuitable manner?

“He talked a lot of propaganda then,” Stewart says, chuckling. “He talks a lot of propaganda now. But you know. That part comes from the areas that we came from. It was a show of ability. People call it being a hot dog. We called it showing ability. It was indicative of where we came from. Folks misunderstood that about Rickey.”

Certainly, it appears there was a lot about Rickey that was misunderstood.

Fact is, Rickey was one of many smartest gamers the sport has ever seen. Not solely on the sphere, however off it. He “counted every penny,” considered one of his pals says. “Kept track of every one, too,” says one other.

Suppose that’s the one instance?

Don’t overlook, Henderson could possibly be in a Corridor by now. This can be a man who ran for greater than 1,100 yards as a senior operating again at Oakland Tech Excessive College and acquired dozens of soccer scholarship presents, together with one from USC. However Bobbi — “an incredibly strong woman, raised seven kids,” Stewart says — put the kibosh on it. She noticed Rickey get the wind knocked out of him in a recreation and advised him baseball was the place the protection internet was.

“She told me long-term, it would be better for me and my body,” Rickey says. “Two-and-a-half years later, I was in the big leagues, so she made the right decision.”

“He would’ve been Tony Dorsett,” says Shooty Babbitt, a Mets scout who has recognized Henderson since his high-school days. “He just had that burst.”

The person has an excessive amount of vitality. Which is why these near him insist that the time will come when Henderson is able to give himself full-time to the sport once more.

“When first of all you have the knowledge Rickey has, and you’re a student of the game like he was, and you have the credibility he does because of what you accomplished, obviously you have a chance to be a great coach,” says A’s normal supervisor Billy Beane, who performed with Henderson throughout the A’s final World Sequence title marketing campaign in 1989 and in Henderson’s MVP marketing campaign a yr later. “But ultimately with coaching, it’s a matter of whether a guy like Rickey would really want to do it. “… The biggest thing with Rickey for a number of years “… has been not when we’re ready, but when he’s ready.”

And when would that be? In any case, vitality can keep untapped for under so lengthy, and Rickey’s a dude who stole 58 passes (in 60 makes an attempt) within the Golden Baseball League at age 46, so what does that say concerning the man’s ardour?

“He may finally be at the moment where he’s able to say, ‘I’m done,’ ” Babbitt says. “I think what he always said was that they would have to come take the uniform away from him. That’s what happened. Rickey, I think, finally has some acceptance about that.”

Simply as essential, nevertheless, is that one other type of acceptance is setting in, too. Maybe Rickey lastly realized he didn’t must play anymore. His legacy was established. Now that Rickey is 50, the picture of him as a once-in-a-generation participant crystallizes much more rapidly than these of Rickey the disgruntled ballplayer.

“There’s this perception out there that Rickey was only about Rickey,” says La Russa, who noticed it up shut because the A’s supervisor from 1986-95. “Rickey was a great teammate. He was not one of those guys who was so arrogant and egotistical that he was going to put himself ahead of what his teammates were trying to do. Yeah, there could be times when Rickey was about Rickey, but he always knew when those times could be. But when it came time to win, Rickey was as good a teammate as you could have.”

When it got here time to successful, perhaps a handful ever had been as harmful. As La Russa mentioned, to even “be in the discussion,” with gamers comparable to Hank Aaron, Willie Mays, Babe Ruth and Frank Robinson “tells it all right there.”

And so, on this Christmas morning 50 years faraway from beginning, Rickey can watch the muscular tissues on his physique twitch, comb that still-dark full head of hair and take a look at what he has acquired from previous St. Nick:

Three wholesome kids. A lifelong companion. A stronger-than-steel mom. A wholesome physique. The respect, if not awe, of his friends.

He shall be a Corridor of Famer. He’s the best participant the Oakland A’s have ever seen and been voted the best within the historical past of the 108-year-old franchise. He arguably is the best participant Oakland has ever produced. And he did a lot of it in his personal again yard.

Oh, and he has greater than sufficient vitality to stare down the subsequent half-century as defiantly as if it had been second base.

What a contented birthday, certainly.