And it's so funny because one of the reasons why I also wanted to do this was because Rickey's baseball doesn't exist anymore. SIMON: So his rookie year, Rickey Henderson steals a hundred bases.īRYANT: Yeah - in his first full season. Money was very central to how Rickey valued his worth. And funny, that seemed to be a harbinger for how Rickey would go about his business. So she gave him a quarter for every stolen base, and he said, I'm going to make a ton of money doing this. His guidance counselor in the seventh, eighth grade had to bribe him because they didn't have enough players. He played baseball because everyone begged him to play.

Rickey wanted to play for the Oakland Raiders. SIMON: He didn't really like baseball? He played just to appease his older brother?īRYANT: Rickey wanted to be a football player. Howard, thanks so much for being with us. He has let one of the great sports journalists in America into his life to tell his story - 'Rickey: The Life And Legend Of An American Original,' a book by Howard Bryant, who talks sports and society on our program. And yet, over his Hall of Fame career, Rickey Henderson was also often derided for sitting out games, for shunning teammates and disdaining the press. He'd get to first base, waggle his fingers, sprint with the pitch, and became the greatest base stealer of all time over 25 years in baseball with nine different teams. PLEASE NOTE: When you purchase this title, the accompanying PDF will be available in your Audible Library along with the audio.Rickey Henderson blazed. Now, in the hands of critically acclaimed sportswriter and culture critic Howard Bryant, one of baseball’s greatest and most original stars finally gets his due. Henderson embraced this shift with his trademark style, playing for nine different teams throughout his decades-long career and sculpting a brash, larger-than-life persona that stole the nation’s heart.

And it’s a story of a sea change in sports, when athletes gained celebrity status and Black players finally earned equitable salaries. “If you cut Rickey Henderson in half, you’d have two Hall of Famers,” the baseball historian Bill James once said.īut perhaps even more than his prowess on the field, Rickey Henderson’s is a story of Oakland, California, the town that gave rise to so many legendary athletes like him. He holds the record for the most stolen bases in a single game, and he’s scored more runs than any player ever. From the author of The Last Hero: A Life of Henry Aaron comes the definitive biography of Hall of Famer Rickey Henderson, baseball’s epic leadoff hitter and base-stealer who also stole America’s heart over nearly five electric decades in the game.įew names in the history of baseball evoke the excellence and dynamism that Rickey Henderson’s does.

Rickey by Howard Bryant