Baseball Hall of Famer and former Blue Jay Rickey Henderson passes away at age 65

On Saturday, it was announced that former Toronto Blue Jays player and Hall of Famer Rickey Henderson passed away at the age of 65. Multiple reports from various outlets had indicated that Henderson had been battling with a bout of pneumonia at the time.

The Blue Jays had the distinguished honour in adding the legend to their roster during the fateful 1993 season when Toronto acquired Henderson from the Oakland Athletics in exchange for Steve Karsay and José Herrera at the trade deadline. Despite hitting just .215 with a .675 OPS in 44 games with the Jays down the stretch, he provided solid run production numbers with 37 runs scored, four home runs, 12 RBI, 35 walks and going 22-for-24 in stolen base attempts. In doing so, Henderson helped the Jays reach the playoffs for the third consecutive season. 

Former Blue Jays star and Hall of Famer Rickey Henderson passes away at age 65

More notably, Jays’ fans will always remember Henderson for setting up the bottom of the ninth inning in Game 6 of the 1993 World Series with Toronto trailing 6-5 to the Philadelphia Phillies. Following his patented leadoff walk, his distraction on the basepaths as the potential game-tying run ultimately led to Joe Carter’s epic World Series walk-off home run off of Phillies’ reliever Mitch Williams, giving the Jays back-to-back championship titles.

As perhaps one of the best leadoff hitters of all time, Henderson no doubt made his mark in baseball history throughout his illustrious 25-year MLB career. That included stops with the Athletics, Blue Jays, New York Yankees, San Diego Padres, New York Mets, Seattle Mariners, Boston Red Sox, Anaheim Angels and Los Angeles Dodgers.

Henderson holds the MLB career record for stolen bases (1406) and runs scored (2295), along with being a 10-time All-Star, three-time Silver Slugger, two-time World Series champion, former Gold Glove and AL MVP winner. In total, he posted a career .279 batting average, .820 OPS, 111.1 bWAR, along with 297 home runs and 1115 RBI over 3081 games played.

In fact, even before joining the Jays in 1993, he was believed to be already a sure-fire future first ballot Hall of Famer. That came to fruition when Henderson was enshrined in the Hall in his first year of eligibility as he garnered 94.8% of the Baseball Writers’ Association of America votes, which was the third highest percentage ever at the time.

Here, we send our sincere condolences to Henderson’s family and all those that were close to him. The baseball world may be saddened by the passing of a legend, but he will always be remembered in our hearts as one of the best to have ever played the game.