Rickey Henderson's base stealing was the stuff of legend. If he had swiped just one more base, he would've had exactly 50 percent more steals than Lou Brock, his runner-up on the career leaderboard. Brock had 938, Henderson 1,406—an advantage of 49.89 percent. Henderson's lead amounts to approximately eight miles worth of stolen bases. (Yes, really.)
Let's compare that to other stats. It was quite a news story when Pete Rose became the all-time hit king over 20 years ago. To dominate that stat the way Rickey Henderson leads in stolen bases, Rose would need 6,241 hits—about 1,600 more than he actually had. Barry Bonds would need 1,125 homers.
Well, those guys merely topped their lists; they didn't dominate it. What about Nolan Ryan though? By acclamation the greatest strikeout artist of all time, he led the league in strikeouts 12 times, and no one has even remotely threatened his career pinnacle of 5,714 whiffs. Yet he would need over 500 more to have a 49.89 percent edge on second place Randy Johnson (who is still playing).
Growing up, Henderson was my favorite player. So much so that at one point I collected only his baseball card. I emulated his "snatch catch." I even got yelled at in little league for emulating his style of sliding into bases head first. So today, I salute you Rickey Henderson. Well done.
UPDATE: Reading the articles today about his election, I was reminded that Henderson is also notable for being one of the earliest adopters of talking about himself in third person. These days, so many athletes do it that we take it for granted. A good example can be found in this old New Yorker article: "Once, when he couldn’t find his limousine upon leaving a ballpark, he was heard saying, 'Rickey don’t like it when Rickey can’t find Rickey’s limo.'" If there's a Hall of Fame for doing violence to the English language, Rickey should be in on the first ballot.
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