Rickey Henderson: Best, Worst, Outliers, and Oddities

A different type of profile of Hall of Famer Rickey Henderson, one that looks at the pitchers who did the best/worst against him, his results vs. teams, in stadiums, and more interesting trivia.

December 26, 2024

Issue #210

After a bout of pneumonia, Rickey Henderson died on December 20, 2024, just five days before his Christmas birthday when he would have been turning 66. He was an outstanding player—many would say a top-20 all-time player, certainly top-30 or top-40. But he was also a very interesting player in many ways, holding several all-time records that are not likely to every be broken, while also being a charismatic personality of the game.

As with some other players, I’ve done a little digging into Henderson’s career numbers. So this is the latest installment in my series of player profiles titled “Best, Worst, Outliers, and Oddities.”

Standard Numbers and Accolades

Before I get to that more unique analysis, here are some of the standard numbers and accolades (with some added details) that reviews of Rickey Henderson’s playing career variously include:

  • Henderson is best known as the games all-time greatest base-stealer:

    • His 1,406 career SB are far more than Lou Brock’s 938 career SB—49.8% more in fact. The gap between Henderson and Brock is the same as the gap between Brock and 46th place Jimmy Rollins and his 470 career SB. The active leader in SB? That would be Starling Marte who through 2024 has 354 SB.

    • Henderson was generally quite efficient at stealing bases as well, with a 80.76% success rate (he is the all-time leader in CS with 335, but that is only marginally higher than Lou Brock’s 307). At Baseball-Reference.com his SB% only ranks 69th all-time—but that is if you include players with a mere 80+ attempts! He ranks 21st all-time if you increase the minimum attempts to 300 or more.

    • His 130 SB in 1982 set a new modern-era (post-1901) single-season record, surpassing Lou Brock’s 118 in 1974. He ran wild that year, as he was also caught 42 times, a bit more than Ty Cobb’s previous record of 38 in 1915.

    • He led his league in SB an amazing 12 times (a record), including seven consecutive seasons from 1980-86, and also at the age of 39 in 1998 when he still managed to swipe 66 bags.

    • Henderson had 71 regular-season games with 3+ SB, far more than Vince Coleman’s 43 games or Ty Cobb’s 37 games. Similarly, he had 19 games with 4+ steals, far more than Coleman’s 10 games or Cobb’s 7. He only had 5 steals in a game once, which came on July 29, 1989, when he didn’t get a hit but scored four runs on four walks.

  • Henderson is also widely considered the game’s all-time greatest leadoff hitter:

    • Although his career batting average was a modest .279, he batted over .300 in seven seasons, including a .315 average at the age of 40 for the Mets in 1999.

    • More important as a leadoff hitter was his overall ability to get on-base, and here Henderson excelled with a career .401 OBP. His keen eye and unique crouch at the plate led to leading his league in walks four times and accumulating 100+ walks in a season seven times. His career 2,190 walks are second all-time, surpassed only by Barry Bonds (2,558). Unless there was a runner on second, managers wouldn’t intentionally walk Henderson—hence it only happened 61 times in his career, compared with the 688 free passes issued to Bonds. As a result, Henderson is the all-time leader in non-intentional walks with 2,129.

    • Henderson did eventually get over the magical 3,000 hits mark, ending up with 3,055 which is 27th all-time. Given all his walks, he ranks fourth all-time in times on base, behind only Pete Rose, Barry Bonds, and Ty Cobb.

    • Few if any players have ever hit in a particular spot in the lineup as consistently as Henderson, who batted in the leadoff spot in 98.3% of his plate appearances. (And he was used as pinch-hitter 112 times in his career, so some of the his 224 non-leadoff spot plate appearances no doubt came from pinch-hitting for players in other spots in the lineup.)

    • Henderson’s 81 HR to leadoff a game are by far the most, well ahead of George Springer’s 60. Two active players I think have a chance to catch Henderson’s record here: Mookie Betts who has 52 at age 32, and Kyle Schwarber who has 46 and is turning 32 soon. Ronald Acuña Jr. has a shot too, as he has 34 and just turned 27 recently.

  • The object of the game is to score more runs than the other team. Henderson is the game’s all-time leader in runs-scored, with 2,295 outpacing the great Ty Cobb’s 2,245. The others with 2,000+ runs scored are Barry Bonds, Hank Aaron, Babe Ruth, Pete Rose, Willie Mays, and Alex Rodriguez. Henderson led his league in runs five times, and had 13 seasons with 100+ runs scored.

  • As just noted, Henderson did develop some power, managing to hit 20+ HR four times and 297 total in his career. Interestingly though, he didn’t hit many doubles—he had 510 in his long career, but only had 30+ five times and his career high was a modest 33 in his MVP season in 1990 (when he also tied his career high with 28 HR). His speed also didn’t translate into very many triples—only 66 for his entire career and a single-season high of only 7 in 1983 and the strike-shortened 1981.

  • Henderson’s career slash line therefore was .279/.401/.419, and his career OPS+ was 127. He led his league in OPS+ once, again in his MVP 1990 season..

  • Though he only took home one MVP award, he led his league in bWAR three times: 9.9 in 1985, 8.7 in 1989, and 9.9 in 1990. His 8.8 WAR in 1980 was behind only George Brett’s career year (9.4). Overall, Henderson has a 111.1 bWAR total, which ranks him 19th all-time.

  • Henderson was a good defensive player, mostly playing LF with some time in CF. He took home a Gold Glove Award in 1981, and of course his speed gave him above average range. He did lead his league in errors committed by a LF three times, but he also led his league in LF putouts four times. Overall, he ranks 10th all-time in errors committed in LF—but second all-time in LF putouts (behind only Barry Bonds.) Across all OF play, he ranks third in all-time OF putouts, behind only Willie Mays and Tris Speaker.

  • Henderson moved a lot on the bases and he also move around a lot in terms of teams, playing for nine different major league franchises. He played for the A’s in 14 of his 25 seasons, including of course starting his career there but then returning for three shorter stints later as well. He played for the Yankees in parts of five seasons, and the Padres for parts of three.

  • Henderson was a 10-time All-Star.

  • In the post-season, Henderson generally did well across 14 different series. He had a .284/.389/.441 slash line in 60 games and 262 plate appearances, with 5 HR, and 33 SB vs. only 5 CS. He was the 1989 ALCS MVP after going 6-15 with 2 HR, 7 BB, and an impressive 8 SB vs. 0 CS.

Splits

Here are Rickey Henderson’s basic career splits:

  • As a right-handed batter, he was not surprisingly more effective against LHP (.288/.414/.457) than RHP (.274/.395/.402)

  • He actually hit a little better on the road in his career (.284/.404/.432) than at home (.274/.398/.404). Those are the numbers even though for much of his career he played at home at Oakland Coliseum, where overall he slashed an above-career average .286/.411/.418.

  • He hit pretty consistently between night and day games, but overall did better during the first half of seasons (.283/.409/.429) than in the second half of seasons (.274/.392/.407). His lowest batting average months (regular season) were March/April at .267 and Sept/Oct at .259, as opposed to the mid-summer when he hit .294 in June and .296 in July.

Best and Worst Team Opponents

Henderson hit pretty consistently against most teams, with only a few standouts:

  • He hit well against the Orioles (.303), Indians (.302), and Twins (.298).

  • Leaving aside NL opponents later in his career, the only team that Henderson even somewhat struggled against were the then-AL Brewers, against whom he he batted .268, but still managing a .376 OBP.

Best and Worst Stadiums

Part of why Henderson did so poorly against the Brewers is that he hit particularly badly at Milwaukee County Stadium: .247/.349/.366 in 78 games. He also hit poorly at Anaheim Stadium during his career, with a slash line of only .239/.368/.364.

I mentioned earlier that Henderson did above-average relative to his career numbers at Oakland’s Coliseum, where the majority of his time was home games as a member of the A’s. But he hit even better at a few other AL parks, including Cleveland Stadium (.331/.442/.492), Baltimore’s Memorial Stadium (.331/.435/.493), Minnesota’s Metrodome (.302/.420/.491), and Royals Stadium (.302/.420/.422).

Best and Worst Pitching Opponents

Over Henderson’s long career, he batted the most often against Frank Tanana, Jack Morris, Jimmy Key, Charlie Hough, and Dave Stieb. Hough’s knuckleball I guess was effective against Rickey, as he only managed a meager .200/.366/.288 in 101 plate appearances. On the other hand, he batted .350 with a career high 11 HR off Tanana in 117 PA, and clearly owned Key as he slashed .409/.480/.784 with 9 HR in 102 PA. He didn’t have more than 3 HR against any other pitcher, but had a combined 20 against Tanana and Key!

Here are some other pitchers that Henderson did particularly well against (50 or more PA):

  • Jack McDowell: 62 PA, 1 HR, .392/.484/.569

  • Geoff Zahn: 62 PA, 2 HR, .418/.484/.527

  • Tommy John: 58 PA, 1 HR, .404/.483/.553

  • Bret Saberhagen: 56 PA, 0 HR, .375/.464/.438

  • Charlie Leibrandt: 54 PA, 1 HR, .405/.519/.595

  • Bobby Witt: 54 PA, 1 HR, .385/.556/.564

  • Dennis Martinez: 53 PA, 1 HR, .467/.547/.622

  • Mike Moore: 51 PA, 1 HR, .372/.471/.558

In fewer plate appearances, Henderson also did well against Britt Burns (.414 in 38 PA), Dennis Leonard (.441 in 37 PA), Jose Mesa (.417 in 34 PA), Juan Berenguer (.407 in 34 PA), Oil Can Boyd (.414 in 34 PA), Jason Bere (.409 in 31 PA), Roger Erickson (.417 in 31 PA), Rick Sutcliffe (.474 in 29 PA)… and .476 in 30 PA against a late-in-his career Hall of Famer Jim Palmer.

On the other hand, there were some pitchers against whom Henderson rarely won the battle. I already mentioned Charlie Hough, but Rickey would gladly take a walk against all-time great Randy Johnson whenever he could: .119/.388/.169 in 85 PA. Here are some others he struggle against over 50 or more plate appearances:

  • Mark Gubicza: 80 PA, 1 HR, .229/.325/.357

  • Roger Clemens: 79 PA, 0 HR, .167/.304/.197

  • Chuck Finley: 75 PA, 2 HR, .197/.293/.333

  • Mike Witt: 64 PA, 2 HR, .184/.375/.327

  • David Wells: 58 PA, 0 HR, .213/.362/.255

  • Jim Clancy: 58 PA, 1 HR, .208/.276/.283

  • Dennis Eckersley: 53 PA, 0 HR, .128/.226/.149

  • Tom Gordon: 52 PA, 1 HR, .154/.365/.256

  • Jim Abbott: 52 PA, 1 HR, .186/.327/.279

  • Milt Wilcox: 51 PA, 1 HR, .222/.314/.333

In fewer plate appearances, Henderson also struggled against Jerry Koosman (.189 in 44 PA), Jim Slaton (.125 in 32 PA), LaMarr Hoyt (.185 in 31 PA), Bill Swift (.185 in 31 PA), Don Aase (.200 in 31 PA), and Woody Williams (.111 in 29 PA).

Oddities

  • Nickname: “Man of Steal”

  • Full name: “Rickey Nelson Henley Henderson,” and according to Wikipedia he was named after 1950s rock icon Ricky Nelson (who spelled his name without the E).

  • Henderson was the first player in the National League to hit a home run in a regular-season game from the designated hitter position (June 12, 1997, when he was 38 years old and a member of the San Diego Padres.)

  • Henderson became known for his showboat "snatch catches", in which he would flick his glove out at incoming fly balls, then whip his arm behind his back after making the catch.

  • Henderson once got frostbite… in August. He missed three games in August, 1993 after leaving an ice pack on his left foot for too long.

  • Towards the end of his career, on May 20, 2000, Henderson hit a leadoff home run and became the third player to hit a home run in four different decades (Ted Williams and Willie McCovey were the others.) On a similar note, Henderson set the record for the most consecutive seasons (25) with at least one HR.

  • According to MLB.com’s Anthony Castrovince, Rickey Henderson “…batted right and threw left. Who does that? In MLB history -- including the old-timey 1800s—only 70 position players have done that. Of those 70, only nine played 1,000 games. And of those nine, only one played well enough to make it to Cooperstown.” I looked this up, and Castrovince is correct—the other eight position players are Jimmy Ryan, Hal Chase, Rube Bressler, Cleon Jones, Johnny Cooney, Hick Carpenter, Cody Ross, and Ryan Ludwick. As to why, Henderson has been quoted as saying "All my friends were right-handed and swung from the right side, so I thought that's the way it was supposed to be done."

  • Two all-time greats are forever tied together, in that Rickey Henderson was Nolan Ryan’s 5,000th strikeout victim. It was one of only five times that Ryan struck out Henderson in 22 plate appearances, although Rickey only managed two hits off Ryan in 17 official ABs, which is a .118 average.

  • Rickey Henderson had 33 SB in 89 games in 1979, and then busted out for 100 SB in his age-21 season in 1980. That is by far the most steals in a player’s age 21 season since 1901. Interestingly, Henderson’s NL contemporary, Tim Raines, is second on that list with 71 SB in his age-21 season in 1981 (an impressive total, which he managed in only 88 games given the strike that year).

  • Henderson scored 146 runs in 1985, the first player to score more than 140 in a season since Ted Williams’ 150 in 1949. Only two players have scored more since: Ronald Acuña Jr. with 149 in 2023 and interestingly, Jeff Bagwell with 152 in 2000.

  • As mentioned earlier, Henderson’s final season in which he led his league in SB came in 1998 when at age 39 he had 66 SB. That is by far the most for a 39+ age season, surpassing Davey Lopes’ 47 in 1985 at age 40. Henderson’s following three years are also all in the top-10 list of SB in age 39+ seasons.

  • Rickey Henderson is by far the best baseball player who was born on Christmas Day, December 25th. He is not, however, the only Hall of Famer with that birthday, as both 2B Nellie Fox and old-time SP Pud Galvin did too. When I created a December Birthdays All-Time Dream Team, Henderson was not surprisingly the starter in LF, with his backups being Jesse Burkett, Joe Kelley, and Harry Stovey. The rest of the starting OF is Ty Cobb in CF and a platoon of Al Kaline and Larry Walker in RF, so that is obviously very good. And a top of the lineup couldn’t get much better than Henderson leading off and Cobb batting second!

  • According to Wikipedia, Henderson was born on December 25, 1958, in Chicago in the back seat of an Oldsmobile on the way to the hospital. Henderson later joked, "I was already fast. I couldn't wait." When he was only two, his family moved to Oakland, California (where Rickey would later spend the majority of his major league playing career.) But since he was born in Illinois, he was included as the starting LF—and best all-around player—in my dream team for guys born in that state. California of course has a loaded dream-team, whether the criteria is born in the state or grew up there (based on high school location). For the latter, Henderson makes the team of course—but there is heavy competition for the starting LF spot with both Barry Bonds and Ted Williams also on the roster (arguably the top three leftfielders ever.)

Quotations

There are many good quotes about Rickey Henderson, here are just a few:

  • “He has a strike zone the size of Hitler’s heart.” - Jim Murray

  • "Has he ever been here (Spring Training) the first day? You have to say Rickey's consistent. That's what you want in a ballplayer - consistency." - Don Mattingly

  • "Some people have asked me whether or not Rickey Henderson belonged in the Hall of Fame. I've replied "if you could somehow split him in two, you'd have two Hall of Famers" - Author Bill James in The Bill James Handbook (2008)

  • “Rickey doesn’t just march to the tune of a different drummer. Rickey marches to the tune of an entirely separate orchestra.” - Bob Ryan, Boston Globe

  • "There are certain figures in American history who have passed into the realm of cultural mythology, as if reality could no longer contain their stories: Johnny Appleseed. Wild Bill Hickok. Davy Crockett. Rickey Henderson. They exist on the sometimes narrow margin between Fact and Fiction." - Sports Illustrated's Tom Verducci, 2003

Then here are some interesting quotes attributed to Rickey Henderson himself:

  • “Lou Brock was a great base stealer but today I am the greatest.”

  • On his philosophy of baserunning: "I always believed I was going to be safe."

  • "If my uniform doesn't get dirty, I haven't done anything in the baseball game."

  • "It gave me no chance. He (Nolan Ryan) just blew it (strikeout #5,000) by me. But its an honor. I'll have another paragraph in all the baseball books. I'm already in the books three or four times."

  • During his 25th and final season, when asked if he had lost a step: “I don’t know if they want people to steal 100 bases at this time. But if I had a full season, and I was healthy, and I was getting on base enough, yes, I could steal 100.”

  • “Once you can accept failure, you can have fun and success.”

  • “I can steal a base anytime I get ready.”

  • “My dream was to play football for the Oakland Raiders. But my mother thought I would get hurt playing football, so she chose baseball for me. I guess moms do know best.”

  • “I told myself that if I ever make it to the big leagues that I would be the one to appreciate the fans. Take a little time out to sign autographs and shake their hands and say hello to them.”

  • Rickey, on referring to himself in the third person: “Listen, people are always saying, ‘Rickey says Rickey.’ But it’s been blown way out of proportion. People might catch me, when they know I’m ticked off, saying, ‘Rickey, what the heck are you doing, Rickey?’ They say, ‘Darn, Rickey, what are you saying Rickey for? Why don’t you just say, ‘I?’ But I never did. I always said, ‘Rickey,’ and it became something for people to joke about.”

  • A reporter once asked Rickey if he talked to himself, “Do I talk to myself? No, I just remind myself of what I’m trying to do. You know, I never answer myself so how can I be talking to myself?”

  • “Rickey was never motivated by stats. He was motivated by numbers. Wins, runs, steals.”

  • About his low crouch stance at the plate, Henderson was quoted in 1982 in Sports Illustrated as describing it this way: “I found that if I squatted down real low at the plate... I could see the ball better. I also knew it threw the pitcher off. I found that I could put my weight on my back foot and still turn my hips on the swing. I'm down so low I don't have much of a strike zone. Sometimes, walking so much even gets me mad. Last year Ed Ott of the Angels got so frustrated because the umpire was calling balls that would've been strikes on anybody else that he stood up and shouted at me, "Stand up and hit like a man." I guess I do that to people.”

  • “Nothing’s impossible for Rickey. You don’t have enough fingers and toes to count out Rickey.”

For More Information

See also these pages, articles, and books:

All data is from Baseball-Reference.com, and also their subscription service Stathead.com. If you are a big sports fan, be sure to check out the latest features at Stathead and the Sports Reference family of sites.

Did you know? I wrote a book with the same title as this Substack newsletter / blog: Now Taking the Field: Baseball’s All-Time Dream Teams for All 30 Franchises. It was published in early 2019, by ACTA Sports, the publisher of the annual Bill James Handbook and other popular titles. You can learn more about it at www.NowTakingTheField.com, or buy directly at Amazon and other booksellers.

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