Baseball Cards * Series 1: Brilliance, Power, Speed, Elegance
Batting third in the Daydreaming at Midnight Base Ball Cards (Series 1), representing Speed, is Rickey Henderson. His spot in this lineup is somewhat regrettable, considering he is the greatest leadoff hitter in history. Rickey stole bases with abandon, hit for power at the top of the lineup, and Rickey spoke in the third person.
Rickey was the first player I looked up to when I was growing up, as he represented both substance and style. I pretended to be him in my front yard of dreams, emulating his low batting stance, and practicing his head-first slides into second base. But above all, I tried shagging fly balls with his signature snap-catch. When Rickey wanted to add some hot sauce to his defensive prowess, he’d stalk the ball from below with his arms down at his sides. Then, as the ball reached the level of a halo, he’d lift his glove to the apex with an arching and spritely flash of green and yellow… Catch! Then he’d complete the circuit in a neon blur by slapping his glove against his thigh… Snap!
Regarding all four bases on the diamond, I contend that Rickey was baseball’s all-time alpha predator. However, when the debate for which players belong on Baseball’s Mt. Rushmore, Rickey Henderson is not often a name that’s given consideration. If you can anticipate me leading off first, you’d be correct in assuming he’d be on mine. Here’s my argument.
Rickey is most known for being the career record holder for stolen bases with 1,406. (For context, second on the list is Lou Brock, with 938. Rickey is a few decimals shy of besting Brock’s impressive number by 50%. Another way to look at it is to say that Brock only stole 2/3 of the bases Henderson did. For further context, let’s compare it to the top two all-time home run leaders, Barry Bonds with 762, and Hank Aaron with 755. For Bonds to have bested Aaron by the same margin, the Giant Pirate would’ve had to hit 1,143 home runs.)
While the stolen base is an exciting play, the objective in baseball is to score more runs than your opponent, and Rickey touched the holy pentagon more than anyone else in history. He ended his career with 2,295 runs — 50 more times than 2nd-place Ty Cobb, 68 more than 3rd-place Bonds, and 121 more than 4th-place Aaron. Sure, Rickey may have played one, two, or three more seasons than those mentioned, but longevity is also a key component of greatness. To bolster my argument, I put my spikes on and sped toward baseballreference.com to compile some statistics, and created a new metric of my own.
For my claim that Rickey Henderson is the all-time alpha predator on the diamond, I set out to see how many bases he reached in his career, compared with the other albatrosses of the sport. The name of the sport, after all, isn’t homerunball or fastball, it’s baseball.
The first natural category to look at is Career Total Bases, which accounts for the number of bases awarded as a result of a hit (# of singles x 1, # of doubles x 2, # of triples x 3, # of home runs x 4.) Here are the top 25 players, along with Rickey’s ranking:
Career Total Bases
Henry Aaron: 6,856
Albert Pujols: 6,211
Stan Musial: 6,134
Willie Mays: 6,080
Barry Bonds: 5,976
Ty Cobb: 5,854
Alex Rodriguez: 5,813
Babe Ruth: 5,793
Pete Rose: 5,752
Carl Yastrzemski: 5,539
Rickey Henderson: 4,588
However, another way to reach base is to simply put one’s bat on the dirt, and trot to first. No player worth his sunflower seeds really just walks after being thrown 4 balls. I believe this should be combined with total bases, considering that the opposing pitcher is more likely to be missing the strike zone on purpose, rather than by accident, when you factor in the accuracy it requires for a hurler to reach the majors. Here are the top 10 players:
Career Walks
Barry Bonds: 2,558
Rickey Henderson: 2,190
Babe Ruth: 2,062
Ted Williams: 2,021
Joe Morgan: 1,865
Carl Yastrzemski: 1,845
Jim Thome: 1,747
Mickey Mantle: 1,733
Mel Ott: 1,708
Frank Thomas: 1,667
Here are the top 10 thieves:
Career Stolen Bases
Rickey Henderson: 1,406
Lou Brock: 938
Billy Hamilton: 914
Ty Cobb: 897
Tim Raines: 808
Vince Coleman: 752
Arlie Latham: 742
Eddie Collins: 741
Max Carey: 738
Honus Wagner: 723
Once a player is on base, there’s only one destination that will affect the scoreboard in the outfield. If you turn it upside down, home plate is the pinnacle of the bases, a two-dimensional pentagon mountain. To reach its summit, a player must run in arching parabolas on the base paths. A player can advance by their own will, they can benefit by the success of the batters that follow them in the lineup, or they can move forward as the result of a defensive error. No matter how they arrived, I believe that reaching home should count as another base achieved.
Of course, if a player scorches one into the bleachers, they get a gravity-free ride to the zenith. To give credit to reaching home safely, a player’s career runs can’t simply be added for this new metric. Statistically, there’s a redundancy because a run has already been accounted for in their career total bases. So this list is for the top 10 career leaders in runs - home runs. For the title, since we are literally subtracting the run from the home run, we’re left with runs home, which is both visual and logical. For the guys can really bop, they can trot home.
Career Runs-Home
Ty Cobb: 2,128
Rickey Henderson: 1,998
Cap Anson: 1,902
Eddie Collins: 1,774
Pete Rose: 1,700
Derek Jeter: 1,663
Honus Wagner: 1,638
Stan Musial: 1,474
Barry Bonds: 1,465
Babe Ruth: 1,460
For the final aggregate tally, understanding that the complexities of baseball exceed the simplicity of statistics, here are the 10 ten players in a metric I’m calling Diamond Bases, as it accounts for success beyond what is achieved with a bat.
Career Diamond Bases
(Total Bases + Walks + Stolen Bases + Runs-Home)
Barry Bonds: 10,513
Rickey Henderson: 10,182
Ty Cobb: 10,128
Hank Aaron: 9,812
Babe Ruth: 9,438
Willie Mays: 9,295
Stan Musial: 9,285
Pete Rose: 9,216
Carl Yastrzemski: 8,916
Albert Pujols: 8,912
If I’d want to hold to my claim that Rickey Henderson is baseball’s alpha predator of bases, I’d write about the steroid era and the pre-integration era, and place him an outstretched hand above Barry Bonds, and a pad the lead over Ty Cobb. But as the saying goes, figures don’t lie, liars figure. And as cold as it is in New York, I don’t want my pants to go on fire. Nevertheless, even though I’m not a lover of the printed asterisk, in my head there may hang a juiced up one next to Bonds, and a white one next to Cobb.
In a future article, I’ll be revealing the top 25 all-time players for Diamond Average, which is a player’s diamond bases per plate appearance. This list will include 5 active players, and a few surprises.
Batting cleanup in this first series of cards, is Derek Jeter, The Captain of the New York Yankees, representing Elegance.