July 29, 1989: Rickey Henderson has one of the strangest statistical lines in baseball history: No hits, no at-bats, but he draws 4 walks, steals 5 bases, and scores 4 runs.
He led off the bottom of the 1st inning with a walk, stole 2nd base, stole 3rd base, and scored when the pitcher, Randy Johnson, mishandled Carney Lansford's ground ball. Henderson led off the 3rd inning with a walk, stole 2nd, and scored on Lansford's double.
Again in the 5th, Henderson was the 1st batter of the inning, and drew a walk, and stole 2nd. Lansford grounded out, and Dave Henderson flew out. But, again, Henderson scored on an error, when 3rd baseman Jim Presley made a bad throw on Mark McGwire's grounder. Henderson came to bat again in the 6th, drew a walk, and was part of a double steal in which Stan Javier stole 3rd base. Lansford doubled both of them home.
In the 9th inning, Tony Phillips was moved from shortstop to left field, taking Henderson out of the game, and Mike Gallego was put at shortstop, taking Henderson's place in the batting order. But Gallego never got to bat, so he didn't have an official at-bat, either.
None of it did much good: Henderson's Oakland Athletics lost to the Seattle Mariners, 14-6 at the Oakland Coliseum. The M's scored 8 runs in the top of the 1st inning, before the A's could even come to bat. They got the runs on 5 singles, a double, 4 walks and a wild pitch. Oddly, no home runs, and no errors: All 8 runs were earned. Storm Davis pitched to 8 batters, and got exactly 1 of them out. Johnson got his 8th career win. He went on to win 303. Nevertheless, the A's went on to win the World Series.
Henderson was baseball's greatest base stealer, with 1,406. He collected over 3,000 hits, 3,055. His lifetime batting average is not very impressive, .279; but all those walks pushed his on-base percentage to .401. His slugging percentage is .419, and his OPS+ is 127. He had a surprising amount of power, with 297 home runs despite spending the majority of his career in the pitching-friendly Coliseum. And he is baseball's all-time leader in runs scored, with 2,295; and is 2nd (and formerly 1st) all-time in walks, with 2,190.
Baseball statistician Bill James once said, "If you could split him in two, you'd have two Hall-of-Famers."
In the 19th Century, 2 players were credited with 7 stolen bases in a game, but the definition of "stolen base" was different then. By today's definition, the record is 6, and it's been done 5 times: Eddie Collins of the Philadelphia Athletics did it twice, quickly, on September 11 and 22, 1912; Otis Nixon of the Atlanta Braves did it on June 16, 1991; Eric Young Sr. of the Colorado Rockies did it on June 30, 1996; and Carl Crawford of the Tampa Bay Rays did it on May 3, 2009.
*
July 29, 1989 was a Saturday. These other Major League Baseball games were played that day:
* The New York Yankees beat the Toronto Blue Jays, 7-2 at Yankee Stadium. The Yankees traded for Henderson in the 1984-85 off-season, but he didn't help them reach the Playoffs, and they traded him back to the A's earlier in 1989.
In this game, Chuck Cary, who didn't do much else for the Yankees, pitched a complete game; while Jimmy Key, who would go on to help the Yankees re-establish themselves, didn't get out of the 4th inning. Don Mattingly went 3-for-4 with 3 RBIs. Bob Geren also had 3 hits, while Jesse Barfield, Steve Sax and Alvaro Espinoza each had 2.
* The New York Mets lost to the Chicago Cubs, 10-3 at Wrigley Field in Chicago.
* The Montreal Expos beat the St. Louis Cardinals, 2-0 at the Olympic Stadium in Montreal. On the same exact day as Henderson's unusual achievement, there was an even more bizarre occurrence: Vince Coleman of the St. Louis Cardinals, the closest thing the National League then had to a Rickey Henderson, was called out twice for interference on the base paths. Dennis Martínez pitched an 8-hit shutout.
* The Philadelphia Phillies beat the Pittsburgh Pirates, 6-2 at Veterans Stadium in Philadelphia. Barry Bonds, who would eventually decide that he needed to use steroids, appeared as a pinch-hitter for the Pirates, and did not reach base. Mike Schmidt, who never decided that he needed to use steroids, had recently retired after hitting 548 home runs for the Phillies.
* The Cincinnati Reds beat the Atlanta Braves, 4-1 at Atlanta-Fulton County Stadium.
* The Boston Red Sox beat the Cleveland Indians, 5-0 at Cleveland Municipal Stadium. Mike Smithson pitched 8 innings of 2-hit shutout ball, and Rob Murphy pitched a perfect 9th.
* The Detroit Tigers beat the Minnesota Twins, 3-2 at Tiger Stadium in Detroit. Gary Pettis singled Doug Strange home with the winning run in the bottom of the 10th inning.
* The Kansas City Royals beat the Baltimore Orioles, 5-0 at Royals Stadium (now Kauffman Stadium) in Kansas City. Luis Aquino pitched a 3-hit shutout. George Brett went 0-for-4. Cal Ripken went 2-for-4.
* The Milwaukee Brewers beat the Texas Rangers, 8-2 at Arlington Stadium in the Dallas suburb of Arlington, Texas. Robin Yount went 3-for-4. Paul Molitor went 0-for-4 with a walk.
* The Houston Astros beat the San Francisco Giants, 8-1 at the Astrodome in Houston.
* The San Diego Padres beat the Los Angeles Dodgers, 9-4 at Jack Murphy Stadium in San Diego. Tony Gwynn went 0-for-2 with 2 walks.
* And the California Angels beat the Chicago White Sox, 2-1 at Anaheim Stadium (now Angel Stadium of Anaheim).
No comments:
Post a Comment