RIP Rickey Henderson

Cross Rickey off then.

 

That already happened decades ago. Nobody could stand the SOB when they were on Earth so they told him to shove it.

 

Yeah, well, that was before the furious efforts by the right wing media screech machine and internet peanut gallery the last 15-20 years to posthumously scrub ole Ty clean in holy water and reinvent him as a softhearted child of Jesus.

 

Ray Liotta nods his head.

 

It was the Indians in the “Major League” uniforms. If there had been a third game, they’d have given up another. (I think the franchise would like to go back to that design, given the similarities of the City Connect uniforms, but everyone is afraid they are still cursed.)

 

That same team fell later that season to Jim Abbott's only no-hitter.

 

There have always been dumb voters who vote dumbly.

You'd think modern voters would start enshrining more 100 percenters.

Jay Dunn's ridiculous explanation aside, why would 27 others deny Rickey?



Want to memorialize this thread too.

JAY DUNN: Why I left Rickey Henderson off my Hall of Fame ballot

By JAY DUNN
Trentonian Baseball Columnist

POSTED: 07/23/09, 12:00 AM EDT |

The game on Oct. 19, 1999 was a dilly. The Mets were facing the Braves in Game 6 of the National League Championship Series. Atlanta had a 3-2 lead in the set and appeared to be on the verge of breaking open the champagne when it scored five first-inning runs.

But the Mets began showing signs of life when they scored three in the sixth inning. They put up four more in the seventh to tie the game 7-7, then took the lead when pinch- hitter Melvin Mora drove in a run in the top of the eighth.

The Mets' comeback was remarkable, but it was also exhausting. Manager Bobby Valentine had run through most of his bench and bullpen.

As I watched the game on television, I remember concluding that Valentine needed to make a double move in the bottom of the eighth and put his next pitcher in the leadoff spot. Valentine, obviously, thought so too, because that's what he did. He shuffled his outfielders, leaving Mora in the game and removing left fielder Rickey Henderson.

By then Henderson was 40 years old and in the twilight of a brilliant career. Even at his advanced age he had batted .315 and stolen 37 bases, but he had become a liability in the field.

The Mets manager, of course, wasn't interested in the past. He wanted to force a Game 7, and he was willing to do whatever he felt was necessary to accomplish that goal. That meant putting his best defensive team on the field and putting as many positions as possible in front of his pitcher in the batting order.

Both concerns required Mora, the rookie, to stay in the game and Henderson, the 10-time All-Star to come out.

Henderson didn't appreciate Valentine's managing. It was reported the next day that he stormed out of the dugout, taking an unnamed teammate with him. They both went into the clubhouse and began to play cards.

The Mets eventually lost the game in 11 innings, but my clearest memory of that day was the part that wasn't shown on television. The part that is still difficult for me to comprehend.

Here was a team fighting to get into the World Series. Yet two players on that team weren't interested enough to sit on the bench and root for their teammates. They weren't even willing to sit passively and share with them the emotions few ballplayers are ever lucky enough to share.

They went into the clubhouse and played cards.

Last December Henderson's name appeared on the Hall of Fame ballot for the first time. As always, the ballot came with a supplement that gave a brief synopsis of each candidate's career. Voters were reminded that Henderson had played in the major leagues for 25 years, producing 3,055 hits. He had scored more runs (2295) and stolen more bases (1406) than anyone else who ever played the game.

The synopsis didn't mention the card game. But I couldn't forget it.

As I filled in my ballot, I placed an X next to seven names. Henderson's wasn't one of them. An internal debate was raging inside my head.

The numbers next to Henderson's name told me he was indisputably a Hall of Fame player.

The card game told me he was indisputably a selfish me-first player.

The Hall of Fame is an individual honor reserved for only the greatest players, but baseball is a team game and great players are great assets to their team. A player who would pout over being removed from a game for strategic purposes is not a team player. A player who finds a card game more interesting than his teammates' bid to reach baseball's holy grail is not a team player.

The debate raged inside me. My thoughts bounced back and forth. I wasn't fully comfortable with either decision, but I had to pick one.

Finally I folded my ballot and put it in the mail with seven names checked. Not eight.

It was the 28th time I'd filled in a Hall of Fame ballot. It was the first time I had refused to vote for a player I thought would be elected. I knew most of the other voters had forgotten about the card game or didn't think it was a big deal.

I wasn't surprised in January when the announcement was made that Henderson had overwhelmingly been elected to the Hall of Fame. He had been named on all but 18 of the ballots.

I don't know who the other 17 were or whether the card game swayed any of them.

It swayed me.

I voted according to my conscience and make no apologies for doing so.

 

Exactly why I feel people who use character judgments to fill their Hall ballot should lose the privilege.

 

Of the 23 that didn't vote for Willie Mays, Dick Young said "If Jesus Christ were to show up with his old baseball glove, some guys wouldn't vote for him. He dropped the cross three times, didn't he?"

 

But as we all know, Jesus could never really be considered for the Hall of Fame. He's no help for curve ball.

 

When Joe Morgan died and Willie Mays died and Hank Aaron died...those were my dad's guys. The players that made baseball for him. They, along with Jackie Robinson, introduced him to the sport and were the reasons that he eventually came to love it. As they each died, my dad's favorite memories of them died as well.

Rickey Henderson was MY guy. That was the first guy I watched and was mesmerized by. My sister would always take me to a Yankees game when the A's were in town and I remember the buzz every time he got on base. You knew what was coming. You knew they weren't going to stop him.

As much as I couldn't stand the Yankees, I was so excited I could finally watch Rickey every day on WPIX, And when Doc Gooden and Rickey led off the 1988 All-Star Game, every kid in my neighborhood was watching. Gooden walked him, of course he did. But Rickey was always Oakland to me and watching him dominate the 1989 World Series solidified that. I guess it makes sense that Rickey wouldn't want to be part of a baseball world that didn't include Oakland.

This sucks.