Rickey Henderson: Hall of Fame
Congratulations are in order for former Blue Jay Rickey Henderson, who was recently elected into the Baseball Hall of Fame in his first year on the ballot. Henderson, a member of the 1993 World Series Champion Toronto Blue Jays, becomes only the fourth Jay elected to Cooperstown, joining Phil Neikro, Dave Winfield, and his 1993 teammate Paul Molitor.
Henderson holds the all-time MLB records for career stolen bases (1 406), runs scored (2 295), and home runs to lead off a game (81), and holds the all-time single season records for stolen bases (131). Henderson was also a career .279 hitter who retired with over 3 000 career hits. Henderson was also a four-decade player, who was a rookie in 1979 and retired after 2003. He will be remembered as the greatest leadoff hitter and base stealer of all time.
In 44 regular season games with the Jays, Henderson hit only .215, but did score an impressive 37 runs and 22 stolen bases. And hey, we won the World Series that year!!!!
Congratulations are also in order for former Red Sox outfielder Jim Rice, who was also elected into the Hall of Fame.
I didn't realize Henderson's stats were that low for the second half of 93 with the Jays. I read Mike Wilner defending the stats today, I'm of the school that no matter what the statistics are, a prolific base-stealer like Henderson is always a bonus to have. He puts pressure on the opposing defence and rattles the pitchers. The Jays had a lot of other good things going on in 1993 (i.e. top 3 in batting average Olerud, Molitor and Alomar) but Henderson couldn't have hurt.
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