[transplant99]

Originally Posted by looooob

for those that might be too young, important to highlight that while he was far and away the stolen base king, he was much more than a base stealer (as reflected in his standing as one of the top 20 WAR totals of alltime)


I'm a big Raines guy, and I think Raines was a no brainer HOFer, the best lead off man in the NL for a decade and has a case at one of the best lead off guys ever, but in the AL his direct contemporary was the gold standard. Raines was Brad Park, Henderson was Orr


best leadoff man ever for sure

Great read on ESPN

In a sport that relies on the historical consistency of its numbers, Henderson obliterated the record book, owning the all-time stolen-base record with 1,406, an astounding 468 more than the St. Louis Cardinals great Lou Brock, who held the record of 938 for a dozen years before Henderson surpassed him in 1991. Henderson holds the records for the most stolen bases in a single season with 130 in 1982, the most times leading the league in steals with 12 and most consecutive years leading the league in steals with seven. As a 39-year-old in 1998 with Oakland, Henderson became the oldest player in history to lead the American League in steals with 66.

Following his final season in 2003, Henderson finished with 3,055 hits and left the game holding the all-time marks in steals, runs scored (2,295) and walks (2,190), a record now held by Barry Bonds (2,558). He was named to 10 All-Star Games and finished his career with 111.1 Wins Above Replacement, third most of anyone in the last half-century, behind only Bonds and Alex Rodriguez, both of whom used performance-enhancing drugs.

Henderson was a first-ballot inductee to the National Baseball Hall of Fame in 2009, receiving votes from 94.8% of electors.

"I've been saying this for years: Rickey wasn't just great. That doesn't say enough for me," Hall of Famer Reggie Jackson once said. "He's one of the top 10 to 12 players of all time. That's how good Rickey was."

https://www.espn.com/mlb/story/_/id/...st-all-dies-65