Another Reason Why Rickey Is the Greatest

by
February 21, 2013

Rickey Henderson is the fucking greatest for many reasons. The following anecdote is further proof of said.


from Long Shot by Mike Piazza

Rickey got his, there’s no denying that: made over $44million in his time as a player. But Rickey knew that not everyone in the game would get their shot to make millions, and Rickey didn’t know what kind of shit people had going on at home, so maybe Rickey figured people went through some of the same shit that Rickey came through — ’cause Rickey had it kinda tough. So when Rickey can vote to spread some wealth around to those who don’t have his talents (and really, who does?), he can’t see a single damn reason not to do so.

Mike Piazza, who made over $120millon as a player and hailed from wealth and baseball privilege to begin with, “came down somewhere in the middle.”

Fuck that, said Rickey. Fuck that indeed.

H/t to the one and only Cush.





 

38 Comments
Oldest
Newest Most Voted
Inline Feedbacks
View all comments
Kyle
11 years ago

Fuck yes! to this post, and to Rickey.

52
Forrest Gumption
11 years ago
Reply to  Kyle

If you are under 50 years old and Rickey Henderson is not your favorite player of all -time, I don’t really care for your opinions on baseball.

40
Wobatus
11 years ago
Reply to  Forrest Gumption

My favorite is Stan Covaleski. Or Rube Waddell.

BTW, in voting for a full share, Rickey is also voting that, say, Matt Franco give up part of his share of the playoff money to, say, Josias Manzanillo. Not that it isn’t a great line.

I thought this might be about Branch Rickey. 🙂

-3
Wobatus
11 years ago
Reply to  Wobatus

Playoff shares are determined by the size of the pool, the team’s success in the playoffs, and how the players vote to divide up the shares.

The pool is 60% of the gate receipts for all wildcard games, the first 3 Division Series games, and the first 4 games of the LCS and the WS.

The world series winners gets 36%, loser 24%, LCS losers 12% each, etc.

The Giants player full share this year was about $370,000 each, so they were dividing up about $9.4 million, and the total pool was over $25 million.

If the ’99 Mets got something roughly equivalent in 2012 dollars, they would have been awarded $125,000 plus each if divided 25 ways. If it is divided 40 ways (they actually had 36 players play games for the team that year), that would be about $78,125, or a $46,875 difference.

Benny Agbayani was a rookie in 1999, and a fairly important part of the team. He was making minimum, and would be out of baseball 3 years later. So you were talking about taking $47k from Agbayani, who only made $200k a year in regular salary and likely never even earned a million from baseball, and giving it to Shane Halter, or Jorge Toca, each of whom barely played.

That money likely was a lot to Agbayani. And to Halter and to Toca. It wasn’t a lot to Rickey or to Piazza, but for either of them, it wasn’t only their money they would have been giving away or taking from someone else.

4
reillocity
11 years ago
Reply to  Wobatus

Your basic point clearly stands, but I’d guess that Agbayani made out pretty well financially during his 30s over in Japan.

2
Jackie
11 years ago
Reply to  Wobatus

Isn’t the pot the players get to vote on a finite amount of money and the number of shares to be given out determines the size of the shares?

More shares = smaller share size
Less shares = bigger share size

3
wobatus
11 years ago
Reply to  Wobatus

It turns out Agbayani made 1.2 million in mlb, and Shane Halter made $5 million. And Agbayani did play some in Japan. Toca played in the Mexican League.

Yes, the pot is finite. The players can vote to give partial season callups full shares, partial shares, or no share, same with the equipment guy, trainer, etc.

1
jkb
10 years ago
Reply to  Wobatus

Smokey Joe Wood… Would love to see a movie about any of those three guys…

1
olethros
11 years ago
Reply to  Forrest Gumption

I’m under 50, and Rickey rates 3rd for me, behind Stan Musial and Bob Gibson, both of whom I met as a baseball and Cardinal (in that order) loving child.

0
Scott
10 years ago
Reply to  olethros

Yeah, Rickey’s not my FAVORITE player…but he’s pretty close. I loved Paul Molitor, Robin Yount(Brewers fan). Griffey was…well..c’mon. HE was everyone’s favorite player other than maybe their own stars.

But Rickey was the most unique dude ever. The story about the million dollar signing bonus he got from the A’s that he went and hung up on the wall. The A’s call about it and are wondering why they have an extra million in their account and come to find out, he just didn’t cash it…thought it looked cooler on the wall like that!

He was unique, one of those guys who REALLY didn’t seem like it was about the money.

And someone….he’s STILL underrated as a player. I don’t now how the greatest leadoff hitter of all time can be, but somehow he is. I genuinely think if I was starting a team he’d be one of my top 5 picks of all time. Ted Williams, Willie Mays, Gibson, Ruth, Henderson…

5