Happy Birthday Rickey Henderson!

Posted on December 25, 2009

Oakland Athletics Rickey Henderson holds up stolen base number 939, making him the all-time stolen base leader during a game against the New York Yankees at the Oakland Coliseum in Oakland, CA on May 1, 1991. (Photo by Brad Mangin)

 

Leave it to Rickey Henderson to be born on Christmas day. That’s right baseball fans, one of the greatest ballplayers to ever lace them up, Hall of Famer Rickey Henderson was born on December 25, 1958 in the backseat of a ’57 Oldsmobile on the way to a hospital in Chicago, Illinois. Sportswriters joke that he was fast from the very beginning.

Rickey was inducted into the National Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum in July of this past year and gave the speech of a lifetime. The best lead-off hitter of all-time and the most prolific base stealer who ever lived etched his name into baseball lore on the last Sunday in July on a stage in Cooperstown, New York when he said, “I love the game of baseball…” I get chills whenever I hear his speech.

I was lucky to have the opportunity to photograph Rickey during much of his career, including his second stint with the A’s when he set the all-time stolen base record and led his team to three straight World Series appearances from 1988-1990, including his incredible Most Valuable Player season in 1990 when I was a staff photographer for The National Sports Daily.

When I look back at all of the great ballplayers I have photographed since I started shooting professionally in 1987 Rickey is at the top of the list, along with Barry Bonds, as one of the most special athletes I ever had the chance to watch through my camera lens.

Happy Birthday to the Greatest of All-Time!

Happy Birthday Rickey Henderson – Images by Brad Mangin