Rickey Henderson 1958-2024

[Frayed Knot]

Yeah, the NY Post moved Mushnick's column, and those of several others, behind a paywall recently.
I've been a mostly regular reader of his column for a while now (guess I won't be going forward though). Liked his stuff more often than not and have exchanged occasional emails with him about what he's written, mostly positive, sometimes not. Is he a curmudgeon yelling at clouds and at kids to get off his lawn? Oh hell yes.

But with the obvious caveat that I haven't/can't read what he wrote about Rickey here, I essentially know what it says because Mushnick tends to hammer the same points so often.
So I'm going with the assumption that just because Rickey is the most prolific base stealer of all time Mushnick is saying that doesn't make him the best base runner of all time. Because while Pete Rose made a career of turning singles into doubles and doubles into triples, Rickey, through his styling and sometimes just plain lack of hustle, would occasionally do the opposite. The primo example that most of us here should remember was his final hit as a Met, a ball he smoked to deep left. Rickey was sure it was out jogged to 1st with his head down the entire time only to find out when he got there that the ball didn't even reach the warning track (too much topspin) meaning the 'best baserunner ever' had just singled off the LF wall. He didn't help his cause after the game when he denied that he needed to be on 2nd base there since he hit the ball hard enough to go out therefore it wasn't his fault that it failed to clear the fence. It's just one example but it was hardly the only one. Lou Piniella, one of his Yanqui managers, accused him of not hustling on multiple occasions ("jaking it" was the term he used).
Also, how does someone with all that speed wind up with just 66 career triples, a mere 19 more than Rusty Staub* despite 2,000 more plate appearances?
Rickey out-SB'd Rusty by 1,300+ but only out-3B'd him by 19?

Anyway, I'm sure examples like those are at the heart of Phil's point. And while I suspect he likely overstates things, it doesn't make him wrong. Nor do I think bringing this all up is in poor taste. The death of someone in the public eye is a time for a review of their life. That doesn't mean the summary needs to be whitewashed.





* Staub's and Henderson's offensive stats are remarkably similar except for the obvious areas of SBs and Rickey's prodigious walk rate.
OPS+ 127 v 124; XBH: 873 v 838; HRs: 297 v 292; 2Bs: 510 v 499

[batmagadanleadoff]

Nor do I think bringing this all up is in poor taste. The death of someone in the public eye is a time for a review of their life. That doesn't mean the summary needs to be whitewashed.

Totally agree. Besides, we're talking about public figures here. Celebrities. People that have lived their whole lives in the public eye. And presumably, none of us knew them on a personal level. So of course it's fair game. This is such an annoying pet peeve of mine. What? We shouldn't have said bad things about Charles Manson, either, right after he died? Ninny talk. OOOOOh. What bad taste! I'm with the Vipers! Everybody's an angel that goes to Heaven. So show me where Heaven is. Like on a fucking map. Thank you.

[metirish]

I take back my poor taste jibe , in fact it was poor taste from me having not read the actual article, so here it is , agree with above, a curmudgeon for sure , I remember him years ago railing against sports teams adopting black jerseys , on the Vince McMahon doc he comes across as the one person actually looking into the WWF and McMahon back in the 80s