2000 TOPPS RICKEY HENDERSON
Baseball cards taught me that Hall of Famers Yogi Berra, Duke Snider and Warren Spahn played for the Mets. I have vivid memories of Hall of Famers Willie Mays, Mike Piazza and Tom Seaver playing for my favorite team. Yet, somehow, it’s not an immediate memory for me of Rickey Henderson as a Met, even though he played for the 1999 squad, one of my all-time favorite Mets teams.
It could be because he was so bad in the NLCS, after having a stellar NLDS. More likely, it’s because he crashed and burned the following year, earning his release after just 31 games. Perhaps the most likely reason of all is that the last card set put together by me in the season it happened was the 1998 Topps Finest one, a year before he joined the Mets. Henderson didn’t even have an entry in that 275-card set, perhaps because he was a free agent who didn’t sign for 1998 until January 22.
Henderson played for nine different teams and he had the fourth-most playing time in his year-plus stint with the Mets, where he amassed 650 PA. Trivia time: Can you name all nine clubs for which Henderson donned the uniform?
Overall, there are 17 people who either played or managed for the Mets who are enshrined in the Hall of Fame. My best guess is that Henderson would be either the 15th or 16th one to jump to my mind, ahead of only Roberto Alomar for sure.
As a fan, my preference is for power over speed, which may be another reason Henderson doesn’t immediately register for me. And while Henderson was no slouch in the power department, his calling card was his speed. Shoot, if some team employed him as a pinch runner in 2023 with the bigger bases and limited pickoff throws, he’d probably still could swipe 30 bases at age 64. He was that electric and that fast.
It probably doesn’t help that he was a star for the Yankees, the team he had the second-most time with, trailing just his original club, the A’S. The first card that comes to mind for me is Henderson’s 1980 RC. The second one is probably his 1986 card with the Yankees. And Henderson’s career played out in the era where multiple trading card companies emerged on the scene, first with Donruss and Fleer in 1981 and then Upper Deck and all of the rest in the late 80s and early 90s.
TCDB tells me there are 13,489 Henderson cards so far. And that in the 1999-2000 seasons there were 255 Henderson cards, although not all of them on the Mets. And not a single one jumped to mind. Of course, this is just about time. No doubt that someone as invested in collecting in 1999-00 as I was in 1976-77 could easily list their top 20 Mets cards of Henderson.
It’s too bad Henderson wasn’t drafted by the Mets. He was the last player taken in the fourth round of the 1976 Draft, the 96th overall selection. The Mets’ selections in order before Henderson went off the board were: Tom Thurberg, Mike Scott, Curtis Baker and Robert Poppageorgas. It would have been great for the Mets on the field. And we would have had an iconic COTW entry instead of this generic 2000 Topps one. Oh well…
What I remember about Henderson in his stint with the Mets, was that even with advanced age, he had a low batting average but had a great on base percentage.
I love power, but I also love speed. Henderson set the single season stolen base record with 130 swipes which is an unbelievable number.
You can be beat by speed. Look at the mid 80s Cardinals. They had Vince Coleman, Ozzie Smith, Willie McGee, Tommy Herr, who could all steal a base and they did. To me, manufactured runs are exciting. That’s why I am really excited about Jett Williams. I really hope that they don’t trade him.
I was mistaken. Henderson hit .315 in 1999 for the Mets. It was 2000 where his average really dropped.
I too love speed and the manufacturing of runs. It’s not just that the Mets have always lacked a lineup with a lot of power, which they still do, but great teams seem to combine power with small ball. The stolen base, the bunt, the moving runners up, and sac bunts all seem out of vogue. Even with bases being closer to each other and those stupid base stealing mitts that extend the runners reach, you would have thought that there would be more steals than we saw. Hey Nimmo get on your horse! The Mets generally tend to get great players when they stop being great because the price is right. Hard to win when your ownership thinks bargain pick up. Hopefully that phase is over. Remember that this this is also the tesm who selected Steve Chilcott over Reggie Jackson. Let’s hope that Stearns’ brains and Cohen’s money get us back into contention.