An Oakland legend, baseball’s greatest leadoff hitter and base thief, laced his cleats in the West Sacramento coaches’ locker room. At 51, Rickey Henderson probably could steal his age in bags.
In 2010, the A’s hired the first-ballot Baseball Hall of Famer as a “roving instructor.” Three decades after Henderson shot up the A’s farm system and raced into baseball immortality, he would now instruct prospects on the base paths in Class A Stockton, Double A Midland and Triple A Sacramento.
As Henderson pulled up his socks before the press junket at the Triple A park, I couldn’t help but to briefly skirt my responsibilities as a media coordinator to fanboy over a local icon. “My senior year at Tech,” I told Henderson, a fellow Oakland Technical High School alum whose football feats on the Broadway campus might be even more legendary than his MLB records, ”Aeron Early broke your rushing record.”
He barely looked up.
“They play more games now,” Henderson replied, refusing to relinquish an early athletic achievement (Marshawn Lynch now owns the rushing record).
Henderson was Oakland greatness personified.
A product of the post-World War II migration of Black Americans to the East Bay Area, forged earlier by Oakland sports icons such as Bill Russell and Frank Robinson, Henderson’s defiance of the status quo was often emulated. “Doin’ a Rickey!” kids shouted before attempting Henderson’s head-first slide.
Pitcher Lenny DiNardo joined the Triple A Sacramento River Cats in 2010 after a down year with the Kansas City Royals. At age 30, the lefthander wanted another crack at the majors.
“I thought my pick-off move was pretty good,” DiNardo recalls of a day Henderson was coaching baserunning and noticed DiNardo tipping his move. “He would know when I was going to first or going home. He said my elbow was moving at a different level. It points to how smart he was and how good of a base runner he was. He took it to a different level.”
Johnny Doskow, who announced River Cats games for 22 seasons before joining the A’s booth in 2023, recalls Henderson spending hours with River Cats season ticket holders during a trip to Fresno. Henderson took photos with fans, cracked wise in the dugout.
Countless others from Oakland and beyond were affected by Henderson’s talent and kindness.
Henderson died of pneumonia Dec. 20 at 65, less than three months after the A’s final game at the Coliseum. A city that lost Russell, Robinson and three championship-winning franchises over the course of a decade had suddenly and mercilessly lost its sporting soul.
