Henderson was named the AL's Most Valuable Player (MVP) in 1990, and he was twice the lead-off hitter for World Series champions: the 1989 Oakland Athletics and the 1993 Toronto Blue Jays.

His high on-base percentage, power hitting, and stolen base and run totals made him one of the most dominant and innovative players of all time.

Despite a childhood dream to play for the Oakland Raiders, he turned down the scholarships on the advice of his mother, who argued that football players had shorter careers.

[26] Finishing second to the Milwaukee Brewers' Rollie Fingers in the MVP voting, Henderson earned his only Gold Glove Award in fielding that season.

[27] In 1982, Henderson broke Lou Brock's modern major league single season record by stealing 130 bases, a total which has not been approached since.

[24] Inspired by Dodgers leadoff hitter Rudy Law, Henderson adopted an exaggerated crouch as his batting stance, which reduced his strike zone without sacrificing much power.

Last year Ed Ott of the Angels got so frustrated because the umpire was calling balls that would've been strikes on anybody else that he stood up and shouted at me, "Stand up and hit like a man."

After the season, he was traded to the New York Yankees along with Bert Bradley for five players: Tim Birtsas, Jay Howell, Stan Javier, Eric Plunk, and José Rijo.

[24] In his first season with the Yankees, Henderson led the league in runs scored (146) and stolen bases (80), was fourth in batting average (.314), walks (99) and on-base percentage (.419), seventh in slugging (.516), third in OPS (.934).

[43] Yankees owner George Steinbrenner issued a press release claiming that manager Lou Piniella wanted to trade Henderson for "jaking it" (playing lackadaisically).

[44] Still, Henderson had his best on-base percentage to that point in his career (.423), with a .291 batting avg., was fifth in the AL in stolen bases (41) and hit 17 home runs despite playing only 95 games.

[48] After the trade, his 52 steals and 72 runs scored led the Athletics into the postseason;[24] his 126 walks for the year were the most for any AL hitter since Frank Howard's 132 in 1970.

[a] Leading the Athletics to a four-game sweep over the San Francisco Giants and the franchise's first World Series title since 1974,[51] Henderson hit .474 with an .895 slugging average (including two triples and a homer), while stealing three more bases.

"[52] A year later, Henderson finished second in the league in batting average with a mark of .325, losing out to the Kansas City Royals' George Brett on the final day of the season.

He again performed well in the World Series (.333 batting, .667 slugging, a home run and three steals in four games), but the A's were swept by the underdog Cincinnati Reds.

[53] On May 1, 1991, Henderson broke one of baseball's most noted records when he stole the 939th base of his career, one more than Brock's total compiled from 1961 to 1979, mainly with the St. Louis Cardinals.

[58] On August 13, 1997, the Padres traded Henderson to the Anaheim Angels for minor leaguers Ryan Hancock and Stevenson Agosto, as well as a player to be named later.

The team then put him on waivers and granted him his release in May,[64][65] which Mets' general manager Steve Phillips called "addition by subtraction".

[24] Before the 2003 season, his last in the majors, Henderson discussed his reputation for hanging onto his lengthy baseball career: Each and every day I set a record, but we never talk about it.

At Henderson's insistence, the giveaway plastic dolls had one atypical modification: "I told them, put a little dirt on mine, make sure that [it looks] like I'm playing the game."

[98] Sports Illustrated's Tom Verducci wrote in 2003, "There are certain figures in American history who have passed into the realm of cultural mythology, as if reality could no longer contain their stories: Johnny Appleseed.

A Padres teammate (variously reported as Steve Finley or Tony Gwynn) once offered him a seat anywhere on the bus, saying that Henderson had tenure.

[12] Henderson died on December 20, 2024, five days before his 66th birthday, at the University of California, San Francisco Medical Center following a bout of pneumonia.

[81]At the end of his July 2009 Hall of Fame induction, Henderson alluded to his earlier speech, saying:[119] In closing, I would like to say my favorite hero was Muhammad Ali.

[120] In 1993, Henderson stole his 1,066th base, surpassing the world record established ten years earlier by Yutaka Fukumoto for the Hankyu Braves in Japan's Pacific League.

)[126] On July 29, 1989, Henderson stole five bases against the Mariners' left-handed Randy Johnson, his career high, and one shy of the single-game major league record.

Baltimore Orioles third baseman Floyd Rayford described the confusion he felt during a particular game, when Henderson was leading off first base and signaling him with two fingers.

"[30] When Henderson was 44 years old and playing for the Newark Bears in 2003, Padres general manager Kevin Towers said, "I get e-mails daily from fans saying, 'Sign Rickey.'...

[130] Added Marchman: Maybe he'd get a bit more credit for all this if he were some boring drip like Cal Ripken Jr., blathering on endlessly about humility and apple pie and tradition and whatever else, but we're all better off with things the way they are... Everyone had their fun when he broke Lou Brock's stolen base record and proclaimed, 'I am the greatest', but he was, of course, just saying what was plainly true.

"[130]As of 2024[update], Henderson ranks first all-time in runs scored (2,295) and stolen bases (1,406), fourth in career games played (3,081), 13th in at bats (10,961), and 26th in hits (3,055).