Honest thieving
Indignity Vol. 4, No. 226
IN MEMORIAM DEP'T.
Rickey Henderson, 1958–2025
WHEN THE NEWS broke that the baseball Hall of Famer Rickey Henderson had died at the age of 65, I saw multiple people declaring that Henderson was such a thrilling presence on the baseball field that it was a joy to see him play, no matter who you might be cheering for. This is the sort of sentimental thing that sounds nice to say about a legendary ballplayer but it was false, and false in a way that dishonored Henderson's greatness in particular.
There might have been real delight in witnessing the audacious mastery with which Pedro Martinez put away your favorite team's lineup, or in watching Manny Ramirez club your rooting interests into ruin. But encountering Rickey Henderson in a game was pure misery. He would crouch in the batter's box with his knees all but tucked into his armpits—an appalling stance, a mockery of the rulebook's anatomical definition of the strike zone—and do one of two things: he would refuse to swing, holding himself coiled, coolly watching the pitcher try again and again to squeeze the baseball through the mail-slot's worth of strike zone he provided. Or he would swing. He would go ahead and swing, throwing the whole zigzagging arrangement of lanky limbs into a swift, clean arc of motion, putting the sweet spot of the bat on the meat of the ball, all without violating the integrity of his original doubled-over stance.
Only then, after that, came the part where you were really fucked. Then came the part that Rickey Henderson was truly, extraordinarily good at. If he didn't make an out (and 40.1 percent of the time, he didn't) and if the ball he hit hadn't sailed over the fence (though it did 296 times, plus one inside-the-park home run)—well, then he was standing safely on base. And when Henderson was on one base, his whole purpose was to get to the next base.
The pitcher and the catcher and the rest of the defense didn't want him to, but their feelings didn't matter. Henderson would size up their timing and their throwing and catching ability, and then he would take off. One thousand four hundred six times, he got the steal. He stole 100 bases at the age of 21, in 1980, his first full season; 130 at age 23, to break Lou Brock's single-season record of 118; 58 at age 32, including the base that broke Brock's all-time career record of 938 steals; 66 to lead the majors at age 39; and 109 more in the five seasons after that, wrapping around into the new century, until he couldn't find a team that would give him a chance to steal some more at age 45.
In the aggregate, it was wonderful. If you weren't sitting through an inning of Henderson ruthlessly carving out another run at your team's expense, there was something exhilarating in knowing that someone was doing things that had never been done before and would never be done again. The stolen-base totals were so astonishing, they overshadowed a more elemental accomplishment: in a game decided by who can score more runs, Rickey Henderson was the player who scored the most. He crossed home plate 2,295 times—50 more than Ty Cobb, 68 more than Barry Bonds, 121 more than Babe Ruth or Henry Aaron. Until Bonds so completely annihilated the structures of baseball that pitchers refused to pitch to him at all, Henderson held the all-time record for walks, too.
At the highest, mythic levels of baseball, people can argue about whether Bonds was greater than Willie Mays, or whether peak Pedro Martinez was better than peak Sandy Koufax, or even whether Shohei Ohtani has planted one foot on the terrain where only Babe Ruth has ever trod. But there's no debate about Rickey Henderson. Every lineup needs a leadoff hitter, and he was beyond all challenge the greatest leadoff hitter who ever played.
He was a leadoff hitter who led off the game with a home run 81 times, who hit laser-beam drives out to deepest center field and towering blasts into the upper deck. He was an all-around superstar and an all-time eccentric, who once framed a million-dollar bonus check to admire it, rather than cashing it. He had an accurate opinion of himself, which people experienced as egotism, but he loved baseball with a truer, purer love than the grittiest, sweatiest grinder ever could, making it a point of pride to keep his uniform dirty even as he floated above the competition. He played 25 seasons, suiting up for 9 different major-league franchises, and then he went off and scored 120 runs in two years with the Newark Bears and the San Diego Surf Dawgs. Those didn't count in the record books, but Rickey Henderson wanted to keep running, and nobody could stop him.
WEATHER REVIEWS
New York City, December 21, 2024
★★★★★ Under cover of night, while the moment of the solstice was arriving, the scattered lingering snow from the previous day's drizzly flurries had cohered into a real snowfall, fluffy and abundant. The ground had still not had a chance to absorb the chill, so the lingering warmth from the uncanny autumn had combined with salt to already melted the street clear, but the trees were thick with white, piled up out to the tips of each branch, unmelting in the suddenly frigid air. Even as the last of the falling snow moved off, the breeze tossed the light, accumulated flakes around. The dogwood gave up its festoons, bit by bit, till only the bunches of snow in the forks of the twigs remained. The teens put on their coats and came along over icy sidewalks to fetch a tree from outside the deli, an errand put off by the rain. Now, though, the racks of trees were dusted with snow, rather than soaked with damp, and the cold, though biting, was not too raw to stand around in haggling. Discount secured, trunk saw-trimmed, the tree pointed homeward like a jousting lance, the teens moving fast because neither one had remembered his gloves.
EASY LISTENING DEP'T.
Click on this box to find the Indignity Morning Podcast archive.
TOM SCOCCA
ADVICE DEP'T.
GOT SOMETHING YOU need to justify to yourself, or to the world at large? Other columnists are here to judge you, but The Sophist is here to tell you why you’re right. Direct your questions to The Sophist, at indignity@indignity.net, and get the answers you want.
SANDWICH RECIPES DEP'T.
WE PRESENT INSTRUCTIONS in aid of the assembly of a sandwich selected from Hygienic Cook Book: A Collection of Choice Recipes Carefully Tested, by Jacob Arnbrecht, published in 1914 and available at archive.org for the delectation of all.
GERMAN SANDWICHES
Spread thinly cut slices of buttered bread with jelly or marmalade and sprinkle with finely cut walnut meats. Cover with thin slices of bread, trim the edges, cut into any shape desired and serve.
CALCUTTA SANDWICHES
1 cup protose
1/4 cup nuttolene
1/4 tsp. celery salt
1/2 tsp. lemon juice
1 tbsp. nut butter
Salt to taste
Emulsify the nut butter in a little cold water until smooth; mince the protose and nuttolene fine, then mix all together.
Butter three thin slices of bread; spread the filling between the first two slices and a lettuce leaf and jelly between the next layer; cut into any fancy shapes desired and serve at once.
If you decide to prepare and attempt to enjoy a sandwich inspired by this offering, be sure to send a picture to indignity@indignity.net.
