Ricky Henderson, future HOFer, signs for his 30th year in baseball.

[cruadin]

Weekender: Run, Rickey, Run

Leading off ...
HENDERGIZER BUNNY

"He just keeps going and going and going. He's Rickey Henderson, and you just can't stop the man from getting out on the diamond.

Rickey's back again, this time with the San Diego Surf Dawgs of the newly formed independent Golden Baseball League. He'll hit a training camp in Arizona and then the plan is for him to take off for his 30th year of professional baseball...."

http://mlb.mlb.com/NASApp/mlb/news/article_perspectives.jsp?ymd=20050513&content_id=1048333&vkey=perspectives&fext=.jsp

[tabasco]

1. I bet he's faster than a lot of the younger guys too !

How many pro bb players play minor league after the MLB career? Not too many is my guess. Ricky truly loves the sport. I bet the SD fans realy love him.

[cruadin]

2. Yeah, you're right about Ricky loving the game.

He's one of those players you always knew was 'IN' the game. Whether you loved or hated the team that he was playing for any particular year, he always gave it his all, and that was pretty impressive.

He will be voted into the HOF on the first ballot, I hope it's a unanimous vote -- he deserves it.

[aint_no_life_nowhere]

3. Will anyone ever break his career stolen base record?

A player would have to play 20 years, averaging more than 70 stolen bases a year. He's broken Babe Ruth's career walk record and Ty Cobb's career run record, while reaching the 3,000 hit club. He's perhaps the greatest lead-off hitter ever.

You might have found fault with a lot of things Charlie Finley did in his life, but he had an uncanny ability to pick future great players and bring them up.

[cruadin]

5. Henderson's numbers are just incredible. The closest comparison...

is probably Lou Brock (started with the Cubs, but played most of his career in St. Louis) who had a career total of 938 SBs. In 1974, when Brock stole 118 bases for St Louis, people said NOBODY would ever steal that many bases in a season again. They were right, at least until 1982, when Henderson stole 130 in a single seasion for Oakland.

Henderson played effectively into his forties (he stole 145 more bases after he turned 40) I just can't see anybody playing at his level for as long as he did. He is one of the all-time greats of the game.

[nickgutierrez]

4. 30 years of professional baseball...

:wow:

That's just incredible.

[underpants]

6. Oh I thought this was the "Jerks of Sports" thread

Henderson is considered one of the all time egomaniacal a-holes in sports history. Great ballplayer but not exactly the sharpest knife in the drawer either, when asked to play winter ball in Puerto Rico after his rookie year he said, "I will only go if I can drive my car".

[cruadin]

7. If they eliminated every ego-maniacal a-hole from professional sports...

it would be a pretty small crowd left to play the various sports. I think a lot of the very best in every sport would be considered narcissistic, self-absorbed, ego-inflated a-holes in person. There's something about the single-minded drive toward perfection that severely warps the personality for anything else except success in one narrow athletic endeavor. Henderson is certainly one of the best known prima-donnas of his era, but he is hardly the only one.

As for brains, watch just about any post-game interview with the athletes from just about any sport and you'll know you didn't tune into a televised MENSA convention.