No. 247: RICKEY HENDERSON & TED WILLIAMS / The secrets & mysteries of the nonpareil ballplayers

What they did had no precedent. Exactly how they got there & how they did it what they did baffled those who knew them best as much as the rest of us.

RICKEY HENDERSON died of pneumonia on the weekend at 65, far, far too soon. Hard to imagine Rickey even getting the sniffles, never mind deathly ill. Given his energy which was always high voltage and his physique which was the stuff of sculpted marble, you’d have banked on him reaching a ripe old age.

Old-Timers Games are a thing of the past, a tradition that lapsed, and their extinction deprived us of the joy of watching Rickey as a senior citizen stealing bases, which you know he would have done. I made a point of looking it up after his passing: Rickey last played for the Dodgers in 2003 and was 44 when he stole his last MLB base.on August 29 in a 6-4 win over Colorado in Chavez Ravine—Cory Vance was pitching and Gregg Zaun was behind the plate for the Rockies. Three AB, one hit, one run, one RBI, one BB, one SB, a pretty decent day at the office, batting second behind Dave Roberts for the home team.