Rickey Henderson/Jim Murray/Wikipedia

Noting today that Rickey Henderson leads the ballot for the next Baseball Hall of Fame voting, I took a look at his Wikipedia file. It's nicely done, and includes a few great passages from sportswriters who knew of what they wrote.

Jim Murray, for example, said: "Rickey Henderson's strike zone is smaller than Hitler's heart."

Man, is Jim Murray missed or what?

 

5 years ago i tried to imagine how a conversation between rickey henderson and james brown would sound, with shaquille o'neal as the moderator.

 

If it's true that Ricky was a 40-something minor leaguer sitting down every day to play cards with guys who would never sniff the majors, then Ricky just is baseball.

I have never met the man, but I think there is a lot of good old fashioned baseball there.

 

i'd like to think he is as close to a unanimous selection as you can get.

 

The greatest columnist ever. Could turn a phrase like no other.

 

Jim Murray, yes. He may have been the best.
But there are a few others I read as a young guy who I really appreciated:
Red Smith, Mike Downey, Rick Reilly (in his prime at SI) and in recent years Scott Ostler, Ray Ratto, etc.

 

- Rickey Henderson, on whether or not 50 percent of major leaguers use steroids

 

Rickey Henderson and James Brown share an oddity of sorts. Rickey was born on Christmas Day. James Brown died on Christmas Day.

 

Quentin Tarantino was born on March 27. Billy Wilder died on March 27th. What an oddity of sorts, people being born and people dying.

 

If your Little League was like mine circa 1979-83, a lot of kids tried Rickey's stance, just for the fun of it.

 

I was in Little Little circa those years, and my stance was a combo of Steve Garvey and Dusty Baker, and the results were a batting average like Vic Davalillo.