This sums up his base stealing skill succinctly:
As for his prowess at stealing bases -- his all-time record is 1,406, and to give you an idea how impressive that is ... no other player in history has reached 1,000 stolen bases!
I saw him play a few times when he was with the Yankees. He was such a gamer.
We were living in the East Bay (CoCo County) in his heyday. I also had kids in Little League. He captured the area and built interest in baseball, particularly in black communities.
We had a long hallway with oak floors. One of my kids, and some of his friends, would use the hallway like a base path and imitate Ricky sliding into second or third base.
Elly de la Cruz of the Reds reminds me of Ricky in many ways.
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Such a great player. There was never a dull moment when Ricky Henderson was on base. RIP
He really demonstrated how a leadoff hitter could dominate a game - and be more influential than the "sluggers" lower in the order.
Pitchers didn't want to walk Ricky because then he would wind up at second or third base, in scoring position and eliminating the double play. And Ricky had a keen batting eye, so if pitchers had to throw strikes to him. But he was a good hitter, so there were risks with that. And, then Ricky started adding power to his game, so if a pitcher wasn't careful, Ricky would put one in the seats, and the pitcher would be down one run before even facing the second hitter.
When he was on base, he demanded so much attention from pitchers that the pitchers would make mistakes to the likes of Mark McGwire and Jose Canseco.
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It would be a blast to see prime Ricky playing under the current rules that limit the number of times a pitcher can throw to a base to hold the runner.
