[ARETE] Review of Rickey

[Duncan Jamieson]

all
Please find below Howard Bryant's review of Rickey
Thanks,
Duncan


Jack Ryan

Department of English

Gettysburg College



Howard Bryant. Rickey: The Life and Legend of an American Original. New York: Mariner Books, 2022. 423 pp. Hardcover, $29.99.



Speed, strength, and style defined Rickey Henderson as a baseball player. These professional skills created a unique Hall of Fame career. However, certain sportswriters suggested Henderson’s career was marred by nettlesome behavior. Henderson’s time with the New York Yankees was stellar, and 1985 was one of the greatest statistical seasons for him; he also perfected the stanch catch, the jersey pick, and other assorted Rickey styles. Yet, the beat writers created a picture of a player who did not play hard and was not a winner: not a team player, milked injuries, and only wanted more money.  What fans remember about Henderson varies because of these media portraits. Howard Bryant’s informative, expansive account of Henderson’s life, Rickey: The Life and Legacy of an American Original, explains who Rickey was, how he became who Rickey is in baseball, and why it matters. Bryant, author of nine previous books, including The Last Hero: The Life of Henry Aaron, combines facts with graceful prose to build a biography of an exceptional athlete and groundbreaking baseball player who did what he did for reasons all his own.

Henderson stands alone on the cover photograph of Bryant’s book. He is in a wide crouched stance, right heel slightly off the infield dirt, left foot fully planted, Henderson stares at the unseen pitcher he is about to torment. He wears an Oakland Athletics uniform, the number "24" in a classic block font in green with a yellow outline. Henderson’s trademark electric green Mizuno batting gloves cover both hands. Henderson makes an ideal subject for Bryant: compact, explosive, possessing skill, power, and speed galvanized by a determination to be the best and completely misunderstood by too many.  No modern player equaled Henderson’s achievements on the field. His base stealing and runs scored records will not be reached; it’s unlikely any leadoff hitter will reach eighty-one leadoff home runs. No baseball player could equal Rickey’s skill set when he played, and it is unlikely any future baseball player will reach his two most significant records. Moreover, a personality like Rickey will never play the professional game again. He remains an American original.

          The style captured in Ron Vesely’s cover photograph is balanced by a black and white map opposite the inside title page, titled “The Legends of Oakland and the Great Migration.” Henderson’s story starts in Oakland, California, a place that produced exceptional Black talent, including Lloyd Moseby, Vada Pinson, Curt Flood, Frank Robinson, Dave Stewart, Joe Morgan, Rudy May, Gary Pettis, Bip Roberts, Bill Russell, Paul Silas, Huey Newton, and the Pointer Sisters. The map also includes the names of famous high schools, roadways, and neighborhoods. Oakland produced talent, and Rickey was among the best.

          Bryant divides Rickey into three books, each leading off with a Ricky quote. Eighteen chapters, a prologue, acknowledgments, an interview list, notes, a bibliography, and an index make up this comprehensive history. No detail is missed. Research anchors Bryant’s project. Rickey’s story requires expansive textual space.  In the Prologue, we learn how he became an essential part of Oakland’s athletic lore. Bobbie Earl, Rickey’s mother, gave birth to Rickey Nelson Henley on Christmas night 1958 in an Oldsmobile on the way to a Chicago hospital. She named him after Ricky Nelson, the 1950s teenage, guitar strumming heartthrob. John Henley, his father, would be gone before Rickey turned three. By then, he and Bobbie were living in Pine Bluff, Arkansas. While Rickey was in elementary school, Bobbie planned their move to Oakland, “following the quarter-century-long path of Black people who traveled west to realize their chance at something better” (xvii).  Book One begins in Oakland, Ricky’s hometown.

Oakland and its athletes, artists, and political figures return throughout Rickey. The city and its competitive culture made Rickey into a high school sports star. Football and a future with the Oakland Raiders was how Rickey saw himself.

          Bryant grants that Rickey’s mother kept him from football fearing injury, but he also points out that "Rickey didn't have the grades to go from Oakland Tech [High School] to Division I football” (39). In baseball, Rickey would be paid immediately—$ 10,000 from the A’s. Henderson believed he was worth much more, and he never forgot that fact.  In a California League “A” ball game, the eighteen-year-old Henderson emerged from an area code spotlight into something much larger. His national reputation took form. Rickey stole seven bases, had three hits, and scored four runs, then he talked about his accomplishments after the game, making the opposition angry. Bryant identifies this game as Rickey’s flashpoint moment— “when the star becomes separated from the mortal rest” (42). Rickey did not stay in the minor leagues long.

          After a stellar World Series in 1989 in which he batted .474, stole three bases, and had seventeen total bases in a four-game sweep of the San Francisco Giants, Rickey was in line for a serious contract. For a moment, he was the highest-paid player in baseball, but by the time spring training opened in 1990, Rickey was the thirty-sixth highest-paid player. Rickey was particularly upset with Jose Canseco's salary. Rickey considered Canseco to be the ballplayer sportswriters claimed he was—lazy, disrespectful, and a clown. Bryant details Henderson's reasoning, and it is hard to disagree with Rickey. Bryant also explains many of Rickey’s Yogi Berra-like observations, and he debunks the still infamous John Olaru story.

Henderson’s major league career began in 1979 with the Oakland Athletics. In 1980, Billy Martin became the A’s manager. Rickey Henderson was twenty-one and a star. Billyball would make him a superstar. His career would span twenty-four years, nine teams—some of those multiple times—countless Rickeyisms, and a willingness to play forever. Bryant notes in his Epilogue that Henderson never officially retired. Bryant’s Rickey is a complete baseball player, one with respect for the games and his peers, hardly the clownish character the sportswriters created. Rickey had outlived them. Still, his Hall of Fame speech could have become a popcorn moment, but Rickey took a unique approach to help himself, his Hall of Fame peers, and baseball. Bryant’s Rickey Henderson is not without his flaws, and none are ignored. But it is Henderson’s uniqueness that propels this exceptional biography.





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