Rickey, Howard Bryant
Rickey, Howard Bryant
4 Rating(s)
List: $38.99 | Sale: $27.30
Club: $19.49

Rickey
The Life and Legend of an American Original

Author: Howard Bryant

Narrator: JD Jackson

Unabridged: 18 hr 37 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Publisher: HarperAudio

Published: 06/07/2022

Includes: Bonus Material Bonus Material Included

Synopsis

From the author of The Last Hero: A Life of Henry Aaron comes the definitive biography of Hall of Famer Rickey Henderson, baseball’s epic leadoff hitter and base-stealer who also stole America’s heart over nearly five electric decades in the game.Few names in the history of baseball evoke the excellence and dynamism that Rickey Henderson’s does. He holds the record for the most stolen bases in a single game, and he’s scored more runs than any player ever. “If you cut Rickey Henderson in half, you’d have two Hall of Famers,” the baseball historian Bill James once said.But perhaps even more than his prowess on the field, Rickey Henderson’s is a story of Oakland, California, the town that gave rise to so many legendary athletes like him. And it’s a story of a sea change in sports, when athletes gained celebrity status and Black players finally earned equitable salaries. Henderson embraced this shift with his trademark style, playing for nine different teams throughout his decades-long career and sculpting a brash, larger-than-life persona that stole the nation’s heart. Now, in the hands of critically acclaimed sportswriter and culture critic Howard Bryant, one of baseball’s greatest and most original stars finally gets his due.Supplemental enhancement PDF accompanies the audiobook.

About Howard Bryant

Howard Bryant is the author of 11 books, including Rickey, The Heritage, Full Dissidence, and The Last Hero, a biography of Hank Aaron, which was named “One of the Ten Best Books of the Year” by Dwight Garner of The New York Times. Bryant served as guest editor of The Best American Sports Writing in 2017, and has been the sports correspondent for NPR’s Weekend Edition since 2006. He is a four-time finalist for the National Magazine Award, a two-time Emmy nominee, and is twice the winner of the Casey Award for Best Baseball Book of the Year. He lives in Western Massachusetts.

Reviews

Goodreads review by Tim on January 13, 2023

How great was Rickey Henderson? Wins Above Replacement (WAR) isn’t the end-all-be-all of player evaluation, but it is a pretty good summary metric, so let’s have some fun with it. Rickey Henderson is 19th all-time in WAR according to Baseball Reference. But let’s look at players who are closer to his......more

Goodreads review by William on October 25, 2024

A wonderful book about a true sports legend. Rickey Henderson was a first-ballot hall of famer. Yet he's actually underrated. His ability to get on base and disrupt the game has never been rivaled. In baseball, Wins Above Replacement is a key statistic which shows the full value of a player. Rickey i......more

Goodreads review by Ed on June 23, 2022

I usually like to read baseball books during the winter offseason to tide me over until spring training begins. But I went ahead and read this book. Rickey (yes, spelled with an "e") probably ranks as the best leadoff hitter in baseball history. This earnest, sympathetic, and funny biography looks a......more

Goodreads review by Brian on October 04, 2022

Very disappointing - how do you mess up the story of Rickey Henderson, one of the most charismatic and interesting baseball players of all time? In the Acknowledgments section, the author mentions that the original subtitle of this book was "Rickey Henderson and the Legend of Oakland." That would ha......more

Goodreads review by Sterling on May 31, 2023

A book about Rickey, Oakland, money in sports, baseball politics, the double standards we place on Black athletes, and so much more. If you’re interested in at least one of those topics, this is worth the read .......more

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