The book is structured into 3 roughly equally-sized sections. It doesn’t shed much new light on Henderson’s personality or private life (and I’m fine with that), but it does chronicle the life of a stellar athlete (Bill James once said splitting Rickey in half would leave you with two Hall of Famers) and places his career in context. In the end, my reluctance was somewhat justified but I’m still glad I read Rickey. But was Rickey Henderson an interesting enough subject to hold my engagement for over 400 pages? I like baseball well enough but I never was a huge A’s or Rickey Henderson fan and I mainly remember him from playing forever, stealing a ton of bases, and being portrayed as a prickly and aloof personality by the media. The book’s author, ESPN writer Howard Bryant, deftly explores the intersection of sports with race, history, and culture in his books and articles and was a former A’s beat writer during Henderson’s tenure with the team. I came into Rickey: The Life and Legend of an American Original with a bit of trepidation.
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