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Wednesday, July 16, 2003
 
holy shit i forgot to write about rickey henderson
i can't believe it took this long for someone to realize he has value. kudos to the dodgers. since when do i say "kudos"?

in honor of the greatest leadoff hitter ever, let's run his career:

yr tm ab wal con pow avg/obp/slg rc/27 sb-cs
1979 oak 351 .088 .889 .293 .261/.326/.323 3.85 33-11
1980 oak 591 .165 .909 .303 .276/.395/.372 5.48 100-26
1981 oak 423 .131 .839 .313 .263/.360/.381 5.02 56-22
1982 oak 536 .178 .825 .313 .258/.390/.374 5.31 130-42
1983 oak 513 .167 .844 .316 .267/.390/.396 5.68 108-19
1984 oak 502 .146 .839 .329 .276/.382/.441 6.29 66-18
1985 nyy 547 .153 .881 .338 .298/.405/.499 7.78 80-10
1986 nyy 608 .128 .867 .341 .295/.385/.501 7.39 87-18
1987 nyy 358 .183 .855 .342 .292/.422/.499 8.02 41-8
1988 nyy 554 .129 .903 .303 .273/.367/.367 5.00 93-13
1989 n/o 541 .189 .874 .314 .275/.412/.400 6.13 77-14
1990 oak 489 .166 .877 .355 .311/.425/.563 9.38 65-10
1991 oak 470 .173 .845 .325 .275/.400/.430 6.41 58-18
1992 oak 396 .193 .859 .331 .284/.423/.458 7.30 48-11
1993 o/t 481 .200 .865 .334 .289/.431/.474 7.75 53-8
1994 oak 296 .196 .848 .308 .291/.406/.366 5.43 22-7
1995 oak 407 .150 .838 .323 .271/.380/.418 5.89 32-10
1996 sdp 465 .212 .806 .309 .250/.409/.353 5.19 37-15
1997 a/s 403 .194 .789 .307 .242/.389/.337 4.67 45-8
1998 oak 542 .179 .790 .313 .247/.382/.358 4.90 66-13
1999 nym 438 .158 .813 .326 .265/.381/.416 5.81 37-14
2000 s/n 420 .173 .821 .298 .245/.375/.316 4.24 36-11
2001 sdp 379 .176 .778 .318 .248/.380/.372 5.08 25-7
2002 bos 179 .175 .737 .323 .238/.371/.366 4.82 8-2

we all know he's the all-time career leader in walks, runs, and stolen bases. he's also the active career leader in hits (3,040). and he has 295 home runs. my favorite record of his is home runs to lead off a game. he's got like 60, where second place is 30 or so. someone look that up for me.

other things to bear in mind:

1. he played in a low-offense time ('til '93), in mostly pitcher's parks.

2. those rc/27's are strictly masher numbers (look at 1990 . . . zounds!) he's one of the few players in history whose baserunning had a significant effect on his value. his career stolen base rate is 81%! overall, he created 101 runs just from base stealing. that's another .33 you can add to his rc/27 every year.

3. that 130 stolen bases in 1982 is the record.

4. oakland coliseum in the early 80's was the toughest place to steal a base in the history of baseball.

"I always felt this day would come. I'm happy that the Dodgers gave me this opportunity to continue playing baseball. … Whatever role they want me to play, I'm willing to play to help this team win."

he's still playing, and he's already immortal.
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