Rickey Looks for a Home, Throwing Things at Carl Everett, and NBA Picks
Running Off at the Mouth
Dennis O'Brien
Issue date: 4/24/03 Section: Sports
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Growing up a Yankees fan in the middle to late 1980s, Don Mattingly was just about as close to a God as I ever came to believe in, but for a while there, Rickey Henderson wasn't all that far behind.
I was just a kid, remember, and I didn't have any concept of what hot-dogging was, and I didn't think about Rickey's constant hamstring gripes and stretches of games he'd sit out while rumors swirled around the league that he was faking it to get some time off.
I loved the guy.
He was as fast as the damn wind, and he could hit too. In 596 games for the Yankees over four and a half seasons, Rickey stole 346 bases, more than any other Yankee in history. He also hit 78 homers and knocked home 255 RBI from the lead-off spot and hit better than .290 three times.
He was as complete a player as they have ever had in my days as a Yankees fan. In 1989, though, he turned my allegiance to hate. With the team spiraling towards yet another fifth place finish, Rickey decided he was sick and tired of losing, Rickey decided he was too good to play on such a bad team.
He demanded a trade. That October, Rickey would help hoist a World Series championship trophy with Mark McGwire and Jose Canseco as a member of the Oakland Athletics.
I have forever, since this most painful of hero decapitations, loathed Rickey Henderson above all other athletes. From Oakland to Toronto (where he again bitched his way onto a contender and vampired himself a ring), back to Oakland, I hated him. He then went to San Diego, and to Anaheim, and then back to Oakland, and I hated him.
Then he was off to the Mets (where playing cards with Bobby Bo was a little more important than watching Kenny Rogers walk in the winning run in the final game of the NLCS in 1999), and then the Mariners, and then the Padres again, until he finally begged for more hate by donning the red and blue of the Boston Red Sox, and at every stop I hated him still more.
Still, he was just so damn good. Let's look at the resume. In 23 seasons in baseball, Henderson collected 3,040 hits, 1,110 RBI, 295 homers, and is the all time major league leader with 2,288 runs scored and 1,403 bases stolen.
I was just a kid, remember, and I didn't have any concept of what hot-dogging was, and I didn't think about Rickey's constant hamstring gripes and stretches of games he'd sit out while rumors swirled around the league that he was faking it to get some time off.
I loved the guy.
He was as fast as the damn wind, and he could hit too. In 596 games for the Yankees over four and a half seasons, Rickey stole 346 bases, more than any other Yankee in history. He also hit 78 homers and knocked home 255 RBI from the lead-off spot and hit better than .290 three times.
He was as complete a player as they have ever had in my days as a Yankees fan. In 1989, though, he turned my allegiance to hate. With the team spiraling towards yet another fifth place finish, Rickey decided he was sick and tired of losing, Rickey decided he was too good to play on such a bad team.
He demanded a trade. That October, Rickey would help hoist a World Series championship trophy with Mark McGwire and Jose Canseco as a member of the Oakland Athletics.
I have forever, since this most painful of hero decapitations, loathed Rickey Henderson above all other athletes. From Oakland to Toronto (where he again bitched his way onto a contender and vampired himself a ring), back to Oakland, I hated him. He then went to San Diego, and to Anaheim, and then back to Oakland, and I hated him.
Then he was off to the Mets (where playing cards with Bobby Bo was a little more important than watching Kenny Rogers walk in the winning run in the final game of the NLCS in 1999), and then the Mariners, and then the Padres again, until he finally begged for more hate by donning the red and blue of the Boston Red Sox, and at every stop I hated him still more.
Still, he was just so damn good. Let's look at the resume. In 23 seasons in baseball, Henderson collected 3,040 hits, 1,110 RBI, 295 homers, and is the all time major league leader with 2,288 runs scored and 1,403 bases stolen.