On May 1, 1991, Rickey Henderson reached the mountain summit. On a Wednesday afternoon in Oakland, Calif., on a field that would one day bear his name behind home plate, Henderson stole the 939th base of his major league career, passing Lou Brock and securing sole possession of the top spot the all-league tournament. Time rankings.

Brock had become the gold standard in base stealing in the 1970s and set a new season mark in 1974 with 118 sacks. As Brock’s big league career ended in 1979, Henderson’s began. Just three years after the A’s drafted him out of a high school just 10 miles northeast of their home stadium, Henderson made his major league debut as a 20-year-old. After racking up an incredible number of steals in the minors as a teenager, Henderson demonstrated the rare talent and tenacity needed to one day overthrow Brock’s gargantuan stolen base. Twelve years later, he did just that.

Henderson died on Saturday at the age of 65. As the undisputed greatest leadoff hitter of all time who played an astonishing 25 seasons, Henderson’s enormous legacy is difficult to summarize in a single statistic or highlight. But if there’s one image from Henderson’s career that’s likely to transcend generations, it’s this iconic shot from the moment after “Steal No. 939”: Henderson removed the base from the infield dirt and pushed it into the sky as a sign of his hard work worth his career. Many times before, Henderson had quickly and purposefully arrived at the stolen bag, only to emerge and concentrate on his brisk journey around the base paths. However, this bargain should be enjoyed.

Henderson’s record-breaking steal came early in his tenth All-Star season. At this point, Henderson was already an absolute star. The year before, he had put together one of the most productive all-around seasons in MLB history — 28 home runs, 65 steals, 1.016 OPS and 10.2 fWAR — en route to his first AL MVP award. This followed an epic run in October 1989 – Henderson hit .441/.568/.941 with 11 steals in nine postseason games – which culminated in his first World Series title with Oakland. Previously, Henderson had been one of the Bronx’s biggest stars with the Yankees for four seasons. And of course, Henderson had been stealing a truly ridiculous amount of bases the entire time. He led the American League in this category for seven consecutive years and reached a new record of 130 in 1982, surpassing Brock’s previous single-season mark set eight years earlier. Henderson averaged 84 steals from him every year in the 80s, which kept him on an excellent pace to eventually chase Brock, which he finally did not long after he turned 32.

Because so much had already been accomplished by that point, Henderson’s handover to Brock in 1991 could well have been the final chapter of a legendary career. But Rickey wasn’t done yet. He had so much more to give – and so many more bases to steal.

In addition to his staggering stolen base numbers and unmatched showmanship, tremendous longevity is another defining characteristic of Henderson’s remarkable career. Only Pete Rose, Carl Yastrzemski and Henry Aaron played more major league games or recorded more plate appearances than Henderson’s 3,081 regular-season contests and 13,346 plate trips. And while a handful of hurlers have a quarter-century of big league experience, Henderson is one of only two position players since 1900 to have appeared in parts of 25 big league seasons. The other is Hall of Famer Eddie Collins, whose final MLB season came in 1930, 28 years before Henderson was born. Henderson made his debut in 1979 and finished his career with the Dodgers in 2003. He is one of only three batters in MLB history, along with Ted Williams and Willie McCovey, to hit a home run in four different decades. One of Henderson’s first career home runs came against Mike Marshall, who was once a teammate of Al Kaline. One of Henderson’s final career home runs came against Ted Lilly, who would eventually become a teammate of Clayton Kershaw.

His outstanding resilience and unwavering desire to continue to demonstrate his supernatural abilities as he aged gave Henderson the opportunity to influence a variety of large organizations beyond the one in Oakland with which he was most famously – and appropriately – is connected. For the first 14-plus years of his career, Henderson played exclusively for the A’s and Yankees. But a trade to Toronto in 1993 was the first of a series of transactions over the next decade that ultimately brought Henderson to a total of nine different teams by the end of his career, one of the highest totals of any Hall of Famer. That first deal brought Henderson to the eventual World Series champion, as Henderson was on base when Joe Carter hit his memorable walk-off home run in 1993 to win it all for the Blue Jays. At age 40, he starred for the Mets in 1999. In 2000 he reached the ALCS with the Mariners. He scored his 3,000th hit with the Padres in 2001 and captured his last base with the Dodgers in 2003. The last decade of Henderson’s career also included guest appearances in Anaheim and Boston, as well as a third appearance And fourth stop near Oakland.

Had Henderson’s career been abruptly halted for some reason after he passed Brock, there’s a good chance no one would have ever caught him. Instead, Henderson continued to run for another decade, amassing an incredible amount of steals on top of an already likely unattainable total. Henderson stole 467 bases after past Brock. For comparison, since baseball was integrated in 1947, only 23 players have stolen at least 467 bases throughout their entire careers.

Henderson’s 1,406 career steals still stand as one of the game’s most unassailable records. For years, the prospect that any player could even come close to Henderson’s bottom line seemed downright ludicrous. But the unbreakability of Rickey’s record was re-emerged recently when the MLB implemented new rules in hopes of revitalizing a running sport that had been largely dormant across the league. The bases were increased and pitchers’ ability to make pickoff attempts was limited, theoretically increasing baserunners’ chances of stolen bases. In an MLB commercial promoting the new rules in April 2023, actor Bryan Cranston suggests that this new era of baseball could allow this generation of players to “run like Rickey,” specifically referring to the standard-bearer Bases alludes to hoping his electric style of play might actually return in some capacity.

As the league hoped, the number of stolen bases has increased league-wide over the past two seasons compared to recent seasons. But so far, any notion that Henderson’s record could be in danger remains remarkably far-fetched.

Think of Elly De La Cruz, the Reds’ dynamo. No player has taken better advantage of the opportunities presented by the new playing situation than the Cincinnati shortstop. De La Cruz’s spectacular combination of blistering speed and aggressive mentality has allowed him to steal 102 bases over the last two seasons, the most in MLB – all before he turned 23. It is a tremendous achievement in the early stages of an extremely promising career.

But compare the start of De La Cruz’s career – taking into account the added benefits of baseball’s changing base-stealing landscape – to the start of Henderson’s career. As a 20-year-old rookie, Rickey stole 33 bases in 89 games. The next season he stole 100 in 158 games. Before he turned 23, Henderson already had 189 steals to his name – a huge lead over De La Cruz, who now stands as his 23rd birthday approaches next month. And if Rickey’s lead over Elly early in their careers isn’t devastating enough for De La Cruz – or any other player – they have slim hopes of ever taking down Henderson, here’s an even more startling parallel:

De La Cruz led MLB with 67 steals in 2024 and was caught 16 times. He was 22.

Henderson led the MLB in 1998 with 66 steals and was caught 13 times. He was 39.

Speed ​​wasn’t Henderson’s only tool – it was the main attribute of his all-round ability, making him one of the few best players of all time. But Henderson’s breathtaking speed and fearlessness on the basepaths virtually redefined the boundaries of one of the sport’s most fundamental characteristics. And no matter what rules the league changes in hopes of producing another generation of fearless baserunners, the reality is that we will almost certainly never see anyone like the “Man of Steal” again.