Remembering Rickey

Jason Burke | 23 Hours Ago

Aug 25, 2019; Oakland, CA, USA; Former Oakland Athletics outfielder Rickey Henderson acknowledges the crowd during a ceremony to honor the 30th anniversary of the 1989 World Series championship team before an MLB Players' Weekend game at Oakland Coliseum. Mandatory Credit: D. Ross Cameron-Imagn Images / D. Ross Cameron-Imagn Images

The news of the passing of Oakland A's legend Rickey Henderson was officially announced on Saturday after rumors circulated late Friday night. Tributes have been written about how great of a player he was on the field, along with people sharing some great Rickey quotes and anecdotes.

I'll be entering my age 40 season in 2025, so I'm old enough to have seen Rickey play, but most of the memories are of him later in his career. For some reason, him in the old blue San Diego Padres jersey sticks out in my memories.

As some of you may know, my dad, Tom Burke, also passed away this week on December 18 at the age of 61, so it's been a difficult week. Yet, my one true interaction with Rickey also involves dad.

Back in 2004, the family went out to see The Incredibles for my sister's birthday at the new theater in Pleasant Hill, and being 19 at the time, I was hanging out with dad while he bought the tickets for all six of us. You know, adult stuff. As we got set to go into the theater, he was standing there. The Man of Steal himself.

Not wanting to draw attention to Rickey, dad just goes up to him and goes, "Rickey??" He smiled and said hello, but kept it very hush hush. He was perfectly polite in the interaction.

Every now and again we'd see baseball players out and about, like Ryan Sweeney or Ray Fosse, who came into my job at Il Fornaio a few years later, or Huston Street and Rich Harden who went to the In-n-Out in San Ramon one Sunday night.

But this was Rickey Henderson. It was a cool experience, even if it was a pretty simple interaction.

When the rumors of his passing started circulating on Friday night, my timeline on social media was filled with people who had taken pictures with Rickey--not only at the Oakland Coliseum, but from around the Bay Area.

That's what makes this one hurt so deeply for so many people. He was from Oakland, and he was all about the Bay Area. In the year that the A's have decided to leave the field named after him, this is an especially tough blow. Yet, in a way it's also fitting for him to have passed in 2024, given that he donned the number 24 for much of his 25-year career.

As I have been covering the team in person more the past couple of seasons, Rickey would occasionally stop by, and when he entered the clubhouse at the Coliseum, players would just flock to him. There were a few times this past season that he would be sitting at a table filled with current players, just holding court and telling stories.

Being around Rickey, you just got the sense that you were around greatness. He was a true Oakland legend.