"Lou, this is Rickey calling on behalf of Rickey. Rickey wants to play baseball." -
Rickey Henderson, on a voicemail left for Mariners Manager Lou Piniella after Rickey signed with the Seattle Mariners in 2000
The 1st time I saw Rickey Henderson was when he played for the Seattle Mariners [in 2000]. At that point in his career [at age 41], he was already the All-Time Leader in Stolen Bases with over 1,000, he had 79 career Leadoff Homeruns [the 2nd closest is Brady Anderson, with 43 & he retired the year BEFORE Rickey did!]. Those credentials cannot be denied. Nobody in the history of Major League Baseball could drive a pitcher more crazy than Rickey Henderson could. For instance if Rickey reached 1st base via a base hit or getting hit by a pitch, he'd steal 2nd base on the next pitch & steal 3rd on the next one! I think he stole 3rd base more often than anybody in the history of Major League Baseball! He was just an incredible athlete. He played not only with the Mariners, but for the A's, the Yankees, the Padres, Angels, the Blue Jays, the Dodgers, the Red Sox & the Mets. But ,of course, Rickey's best years came in the 1980's with Oakland Athletics & the New York Yankees. He was, in my opinion, the BEST all-around player to play baseball in the 1980's. He won outstanding fielding awards, he won Most Valuable Player awards, he stole at least 100 bases from 1982-1984, he was an All-Star. He also won the 1989 & 1993 World Series with the A's & Blue Jays respectively. But the reason why Rickey played for so many teams was because of his personality. For example, when he played for the A's, the owner was Charlie Finley, a man famous for not paying baseball players, traded Rickey to the Yankees even though Rickey had said he wanted to remain in Oakland long-term [because he was a local product from the Bay Area] in exchange for a little bit more cash to put into his savings account, his proposed contract was for "only" $3,000,000 per season for seven years which, per season was $2,438,000 more than what he made in his first 6 years in Oakland combined! The A's had plenty of money but they traded him to the Yankees anyway, who also had an idiotic owner in George Steinbrenner. But, in the middle of the 1989 season, Rickey was traded BACK TO OAKLAND because of guess what? A contract dispute with the Yankees ownership! But in 1993, the A's couldn't meet Rickey's contract request so traded him to Toronto where he won the World Series with the Blue Jays!
But one of my favorite stories of Rickey was when he signed with the Mariners in May of 2000, he had this conversation with John Olerud and I swear to you this is true:
Rickey: Rickey had this teammate in Toronto seven years ago, he always wore a helmet when he was on the field and...
Olerud: Uh, Rickey? That was me...
