Thanks for the great reading, we buy Gold in a recession. I will pass this on to our Ira clients to read.

Did Rickey really dog it as a Yankee?

According to the always accurate and kind
New York Press, he did.

What is the history of how this story started? Had he ever
been accused of dogging it before in his career? No, he had NOT.

Rickey had come to “Sweet” Lou Piniella complaining of a terrible pain in
his leg, and asked to take some time off so it could heal. “Sweet Lou”
not known for much compassion basically told Henderson to get his tail
out on the field. And continued to make him play daily in extreme pain.
“Sweet Lou” also complained to George Steinbrener and the NY press that
that Rickey was “dogging it”. George decided to go into the locker room
before one of the games and scolded Rickey for dogging it per Piniella’s
tattelng. Rickey told George he was not dogging it, he was really hurting.
George said to him, lets get the leg checked out and get to the bottom of this.

The results came back that Rickey had severely torn tendon that ran from
the top of his leg to the bottom of his buttock. The doctor was amazed that
he was able to play on it at all. George appologized to Rickey, and told him
to take off as much time as needed to heal. He also told “Sweet Lou” the
results. “Sweet Lou” never told the press the true story, so the story of
Rickey dogging it stayed attached to his persona. Steinbrenner did try to
get the NY press to write a retraction, but they never did.

He did play cards while with the Mets, but the story about him dogging it all
came from “Sweet Lou” who did give a shit about his players. And was too
chicken shit to tell the press he was wrong.

Henderson, like many, stayed well past his prime. He was hanging on LONG after teams, fellow players were telling him to call it a career. Yes…he could still get the job done when he wanted to.

I still remember, sadly, when his play in the Postseason as a Met was ineffective – he was taken out of the game. Still, Henderson should have been on the bench and in the dugout cheering on his team. He ended that year playing chess, checkers or some other board/card game in the clubhouse. Sorry…he loses a vote or two for that selfishness.

Oh, yeah – all those stolen bases. How many were just to steal bases? Joe Morgan wouldn’t have come close in career, but I wonder how many more bases he would have had if he was stealing bases for that feat alone. Morgan stole bases in meaningful situations…to help the team win. He would have stolen over 1000 easily if he would have taken the Henderson approach.

Still, Henderson has EARNED his spot on the Baseball Hall of Fame Roster. I hope MLB, and the HOF shows forgiveness and kindness and allows Pete Rose to join Henderson, Cobb, Ruth, Schmidt, Bench and the others one day…hopefully before Charlie Hustle dies.

You ought to do the guy the same honor of using his full name that you gave to everyone else you listed. It’s not really that hard to remember how to spell it out. I learned when I was 6. (Of course that was in 1973 and I grew up in a diehard Sox household, but still. Not that hard, especially for a professional wordsmith.)

We should be (and are) having discussions like so many of the good posts above such as whether Jim Rice was one of the most feared hitters of the era or were his stats inflated by Fenway and where does Rickey Henderson fit in among the greatest players of all-time, rather than wasting mental energy on whether Player A is better than Player B because they got a higher percentage of the BBWAA HoF vote or whether so-and-so should be a unanimous choice.

Regarding Rickey’s stature among all-time greats, I postulate that he is one of the top 5 players of the last 50 or so years (i.e post-Williams/Musial/Dimaggio era). Using Joe’s “Willie Mays HoFers”, of those non-pitchers who began their careers after 1950 (Murray; McCovey; Carew; Morgan; Jackie Robinson; Ripken; Ozzie Smith; Banks; Yount; Brett; Schmidt; Boggs; Brooks Robinson; Aaron; Gwynn; Jackson; Clemente; Frank Robinson; Kaline; Winfield; Mays; Mantle; Puckett; Yastrzemski; Stargell; Brock; Bench; Molitor) and other HoF eligibles, who is “greater than” or “as great as” Rickey – Aaron and Mays, for sure; Mantle, Clemente – probably; others in the discussion – Morgan? Ripken? What if we include active players whose careers are largely complete – Griffey? Bonds (who opens a host of other issues)?