Dave Stewart on a lifelong friend. MLB legend

PHOENIX – Former Oakland Athletics star Dave Stewart was exhausted, his voice rough and his eyes watering as his mind wandered over all the memories.

That didn’t seem real.

Certainly Rickey Henderson, one of his best friends in life – not just in baseball – wasn’t doing particularly well. Henderson was asthmatic, suffered from persistent sinus problems that required surgery last year, and was often tired.

Yet this was Rickey, always moving and refusing to let his body slow him down.

“When I heard he was sick,” Stewart told USA TODAY Sports on Saturday, “I wasn’t surprised. He doesn’t know how to stop it. He doesn’t give himself a chance not to be 100%.”

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“He had asthma, he was sick, it never stopped him. He was always on the go. He had these rental properties in Oakland, and I kept getting calls saying they’d seen Rickey mowing the lawn. I would say, “What do you mean?” They told me that he was actually working on his property with a borrowed lawnmower.

“He was always in a good mood. He loves to fish. He has just started hunting. On his first hunt he is out hunting wild boars. This is not the animal you hunt on your first hunt.

Stewart called Henderson on Friday afternoon to remind him that a business meeting was scheduled for Saturday. Henderson’s daughter, Alexis, answered the phone. They were at a hospital in Oakland, where Henderson was scheduled to undergo surgery.

Later, Stewart received a call from Alexis, who told him that her father hadn’t made it.

He died at the age of 65, five days before his 66th year^Th Birthday on Christmas Day.

“I couldn’t believe it,” Stewart said, “I still can’t. I can hardly believe it. We’ve known each other practically our whole lives.”

“That was my buddy.”

They first met as teenagers in Oakland, playing against each other in the Babe Ruth League. The circle was full of future major league and minor league players. There was Rupert Jones. Glenn Burke. Gary Pettis. Lloyd Moseby. Tack Wilson. Cleo Smith. Stewart.

And of course the greatest of all: Rickey Nelson Henley Henderson, who became baseball’s all-time scoring leader and runs leader.

“Growing up, he wasn’t that good of a baseball player,” Stewart said. “He had great skills. He could run and do things. But he would probably admit that out of three major sports at the time, he was the best at football.” Baseball, then basketball, he still had a lot to learn because his first choice was to be a great running back.

Henderson used to say that before Bo he could have been the Bo Jackson, an All-Star and All-Pro in two sports, but the Athletics wouldn’t let him play in the NFL.

The two best friends, Stewart, drafted by the Los Angeles Dodgers in 1975, and Henderson, drafted by the Athletics a year later, played against each other in the Mexican winter leagues. They faced off in the minors, with Stewart playing for Albuquerque, NM and Henderson playing for Ogden, Utah.

“The night before I confronted him, he told me that I had a lot of friends who would take him out until the early hours of the morning,” Stewart said. “So I knocked him out the first two times. He comes to bat for the third time with a lighter bat.

“And he takes me deep.”

Henderson still laughed as he told the story four decades later.

They finally got to play with their hometown Oakland Athletics in 1989, when Henderson was traded to the Yankees and Stewart was in the midst of his third straight 20-win season.

“It was the thrill of my life to sit back and watch with that kind of skill,” Stewart said. “So talented. This one-time thing. There will never be another player like him.”

Together, they led the Athletics to the 1989 World Series championship over the San Francisco Giants, which will forever be remembered by the devastating Loma Prieta earthquake before Game 3, which postponed the World Series for ten days.

Henderson, who batted .400 and stole eight bases, was the MVP of the ALCS, with the A’s defeating the Toronto Blue Jays and reaching the World Series.

Henderson hit .474 in the World Series, but the MVP went to Stewart, who went 2-0 with a 1.13 ERA in the four-game sweep.

“When I won the MVP,” Stewart said with a laugh, “Rickey kept saying the trophy was really his. He told me the only reason I won it was because of all the things I did during the earthquake. He told me: ‘If you didn’t do all that to help people, it was mine. You got sympathy votes.’

Stewart laughed for nearly 30 seconds as he told the story.

That was Rickey.

Stewart was honored by the Athletics in 2022 when they retired his jersey in a ceremony, the first time the A’s retired a number since Henderson in 2009. Their numbers remained together in the upper deck, and they were the two former A’s players selected to throw the ceremonial first pitch in the team’s final game at the Coliseum in September.

“I respected and loved Rollie (Fingers) and Reggie (Jackson) and Catfish (Hunter), but when my number was retired along with Rickie by the A’s,” Stewart said, “that was a big, big deal for me.”

“I remember when I decided to retire in 1995, he hadn’t spoken to me for two, maybe three weeks. He kept telling me to retire when he retired. He wanted me to continue playing as long as he did (2003).

“When my number was retired, what was special about it was that he and I were together, two kids from Oakland, and our numbers were retired together by the organization we loved.”

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Dave Stewart on a lifelong friend. MLB legend

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