Rickey Henderson crushed souls with unprecedented efficiency

Rickey Henderson revolutionized the sport of baseball throughout the ‘80s and ‘90s. From the moment he broke into the bigs, he spent over two decades using his immense skill, smarts, and speed to propel himself to one helluva unique career.

Playing against Henderson would be like having a loose thread on a sweater. You give that thing one yank, and before you know it, you’ve got a disastrous fashion situation on your hands. That one pull on the thread would be like allowing Henderson on base. Only disaster could ensue. Combined with being one of the top players ever at reaching base in the first place, not only would he swipe bags and score runs like no one before, he was playing a different game altogether than his peers.

On the basepaths, Henderson played chess while everyone else played checkers. Just like the Babe Ruth back in the ‘20s lapping the league and hitting more dingers than entire teams, this was Henderson with stolen bases. We’ll never get another, so we tried to wrap our brains around the career of the one and only Rickey Henderson.