I can’t say I remember a lot about Rickey Henderson’s two-to-three month stint with the Toronto Blue Jays when I covered the team for the Toronto Star in 1993. But I sure remember how we met.
It was July 31, 1993; the Major League Baseball trade deadline, and it was my second year as a full-time writer on the Blue Jays beat for the Star. The Jays had won the World Series the previous year by beating Atlanta, but they desperately wanted a second title and were believed to be in the market for another outfielder with some offensive skills.
Lo and behold, as the midnight (as I recall) trade deadline neared, the Jays announced they had acquired Henderson.
That’s when I had an idea.
The Blue Jays were the biggest thing in sports in Toronto in those days. The Leafs were playing well (the Raptors didn’t exist yet), but the Jays owned the sports media market. Back in those days, we had at least two and usually three reporters at every home game, and often a columnist such as Dave Perkins, Jim Proudfoot or Rosie DiManno.
I knew that the acquisition of Henderson was the biggest story of the summer in Toronto sports. And I knew the Star would be interested in a bit of a scoop.
I don’t remember exactly when, but soon after the trade I called (there was no email in those days) the Star’s sports editor and told them I wanted to hop on the next plane to the Bay Area so I could interview Henderson before any other Toronto media got to him. I sweetened the pot a little by saying I could stay at my Mom and Dad’s place in the East Bay, where I grew up, thus saving on a hotel.
The Star jumped at it, and I jumped on the first flight to San Francisco on Aug. 1. As I recall (it’s been 31 years so I may have some details wrong), I got a quick ride from SFO to the Oakland Coliseum. The Star had arranged for me to get a credential to attend the A’s game against Texas that day, so I pulled up at the Coliseum and made my way towards the A’s locker room.
I was going to get a photo of Henderson and talk to him about his new team, but I wanted the photo to scream “Rickey’s a Blue Jay.” I walked to a concession stand and managed to find a Blue Jays cap, which I purchased and took to the A’s dressing room. Henderson was there, and I got him to put on the hat so I could take a photo.
The cap came home with me, and our kids would periodically wear it. Sadly, we lost track of it many years ago. But there was never any proof it was Henderson’s first Jays hat, so I doubt it had any value on the market.
I also haven’t been able to find the story I wrote about Henderson for the Star, the Internet still not being so great at showing newspaper stories written three decades ago. But I’m sure the interview was filled with cliches and probably some average sports writing from me, as well as a couple unusual quotes, Henderson being someone who often referred to himself in the third person.
I remember telling Henderson I was born in Oakland, and that my parents had gone to the same high school he did; Oakland Tech. I don’t think it ever registered, and he certainly didn’t seem to care. But I found most athletes I chatted with in my dozen or so years in Star Sports to be like that. A few of them would ask you questions about your own life, or about how you did your job. Pitcher David Cone was a frustrated sportswriter who later became a television commentator, and once sat me down to ask about the life of a baseball writer. I would sometimes talk to John Olerud about books, as he was an avid reader who I once spotted leafing through a paperback copy of James Clavell’s “Shogun.”
But those were rarities. Most players, and I can’t say I blame them, didn’t care much about getting to know the reporters who thrust microphones or tape recorders (yeah, I’m old) into their faces. Athletes get paid for what they do on the field and not how they deal with sportswriters. Most of the athletes I dealt with in my stint with Star sports were pleasant, but few trusted the media enough to truly engage. The ones who did were, in my experience, the guys who were just happy to be there; the fourth outfielder or the back-up catcher or middle relievers.
Rickey Henderson was a pretty typical ballplayer in the locker room. But, on the field, he was a whirling dervish. No, he didn’t hit for a ton in his brief stint with the Blue Jays, posting a .215 regular season average (but a .356 on-base percentage, with 22 stolen bases in 44 games). He hit .227 in the World Series, but posted an excellent .393 on-base percentage. Henderson had a key walk in the ninth inning of game six against the Phillies, and then took second on a Paul Molitor, one-out single. He danced off second base in true Rickey style, forcing Phillies’ closer Mitch “Wild Thing” Williams to pay more attention to him than he probably would’ve liked. That might not have helped Joe Carter get a pitch he would smack over the left field wall to win the Jays’ second World Series in a row, but it sure didn’t hurt. If Henderson hadn’t worked a walk the game might have gone sideways on the Jays, and they could’ve been looking at a do-or-die game seven. Instead, he was the tying run on Carter’s epic, three-run homer.
Toronto fans, and baseball fans around the world, owe Rickey Henderson a debt of gratitude for a career that put him on top of the all-time MLB list for stolen bases and for a little-known stat of being the first man in Major League Baseball history to hit a home run in 25 straight seasons. He was one of a kind.
We never had a heart-to-heart about his high school days or his favourite restaurants in Oakland, but I appreciate being able to interview and watch one of the all-time greats.
He was a man who was constantly in motion, but is now eternally still.
RIP, Rickey.
