52 in 25: #36 - Rickey

I really wanted to love Howard Bryant’s Rickey: The Life and Legend of an American Original.  Rickey Henderson was a favorite player.  I loved watching him.  His combination of speed, eye, and power is unmatched.  He was the greatest leadoff hitter of all time.  But this biography was disappointing.

 

I should have expected, given the author, the overwhelming focus on race.  And, sure, it was important to Rickey’s life.  But it didn’t have to be the main thread of this biography.  Essentially everything came down to race.  Now, of course I know that by saying that I am a racist.  Whatever.

 

Another big problem was how little of his actual on-field exploits were covered.  Worst example: one section ends in 1995, the next section picks up in 2001 and quickly moves to his retirement.  It was jarring. The intervening years were some of the most important to me, when he was a Padre and I was watching him all the time.  Now, yes, he went back and covered some of that time, but that was another problem I had.  It was maybe overall linear, but not really.  One paragraph to the next might be in the 2000s, then the 1990s, then back to the 1970s.  Stop jumping around!  I’m lost!

 

It's not a bad book.  I’ve definitely read better baseball biographies.  Again, that’s my biggest problem.  If you want to convince me that he is one of the all-time greats (I know he is), then maybe talk a little bit more about on-field Rickey and less about the city of Oakland.  The context is interesting, but it gets tedious.  And that’s part of the reason why it took me so long to read this, because I needed to supplement it with something interesting (Congo).