May 30, 1982: Rickey Henderson steals four bases in A’s victory

The Oakland Athleticsof the early 1980s, led by manager Billy Martin, were often exciting and usually very entertaining. Under Martin from 1980 to 1982, the A’s developed a version of “small ball” based on speed, hit-and-run, and pitching. The style became known as “Billy Ball.”1

In Martin’s first season, the A’s finished a distant second to the Kansas City Royals in the American League West Division. In the hybrid split season of 1981, both the A’s and Royals qualified for the playoffs and the A’s eliminated Kansas City, three games to none, to earn the right to play the New York Yankees in the ALCS. The Yankees then sent the A’s home by winning three straight games.

Going into the 1982 season, Oakland was looking to defend its division title and reach its first World Series since 1974. But the A’s stumbled early and by late May they were languishing nine games behind the California Angels.2

And if a taste of the playoffs and the buzz around Billy Ball were not enough, fans had a chance to follow one of the most exciting young players in the game – Rickey Henderson. In Henderson’s first full season, 1980, he earned All-Star honors and in 1981 the “Man of Steal” had another remarkable season. He racked up an incredible 100 stolen bases in 1980, and in the strike-shortened 1981 season he recorded 56 more steals, along with 89 runs and 135 hits. Henderson led the AL in all three categories.

Entering the May 30 doubleheader, the A’s had lost six straight to the Tigers, including the first two of the series. In the opener Oakland continued its slump, dropping a 5-2 decision to Detroit and pitcher Jack Morris to make the losing streak three straight. But the nightcap and series finale brought a different result sparked by the baserunning exploits of Henderson.

A’s starter Steve McCatty, fighting a sore shoulder,3 gave up two runs in the top of the first on a solo home run by Tom Brookens, followed by a double, a walk, and an RBI single by Rick Leach. McCatty then settled down and gave up only one more run despite scattering eight more hits and issuing three additional walks.

Henderson immediately fought back in the bottom of the first against Tigers starter Pat Underwood. After a walk leading off the game, he stole second, paused as center fielder Dwayne Murphy struck out, then stole third and came home on a sacrifice fly off the bat of designated hitter Cliff Johnson.

McCatty’s struggles continued as he walked the bases loaded in the second but escaped without being scored on. In the third he surrendered another single but managed to get Lou Whitaker to ground into a double play.

With two out in the A’s half of the third inning, Henderson picked up right where he left off. After a single to left, he stole second and third, then came home on Murphy’s single to center. The four steals early in the game pushed Henderson’s stolen-base total to 49. It was also game number 49 for the A’s. And the game was now tied at 2-2.

In the fifth inning, Henderson was again in the middle of an A’s rally. Two singles and a throwing error by catcher Mike Heath gave the A’s a run and a runner at third when Henderson came up. His single scored Oakland’s fourth run of the contest. But, as Henderson put it, he was a bit “overanxious” at this point and was picked off trying to steal second and was tagged out in a rundown.4 A homer from Murphy gave the A’s a 5-2 lead at the end of five innings.

The Tigers got their final run in the sixth on a pair of singles and an RBI double by Tom Brookens. But the A’s responded quickly in their half of the sixth, garnering three unearned runs. With two out, Joe Rudi singled, Tigers left fielder Larry Herndon dropped a potential third out in foul territory and the A’s pounced. Given a second chance, Davey Lopes walked, Jimmy Sexton’s single to left scored a run, and Fred Stanley hit a two-run single to put the A’s ahead 8-3. Henderson struck out to end the inning.

In the bottom of the eighth, Henderson continued his productive afternoon. After another single by Rudi, a walk to Sexton, and a wild pitch by reliever Aurelio López, Henderson came up for his final at-bat of the day. He lined a single to center that drove in both runners. Holding first, Henderson did not try to get his fifth steal of the game as Murphy grounded out to end the inning.

With a 10-3 victory in hand and the split of a doubleheader, the A’s moved to 8½ games behind the Angels and only a half-game behind the fourth-place Seattle Mariners. Still, there seemed to be more concern about the fate of the A’s early in the season than of Henderson’s accomplishments. For Oakland it was their first victory in seven games against the Tigers. Manager Martin tried to minimize concerns saying, “We don’t have to worry about beating Detroit anyway. They’re in the other division. We have to worry about our own division.”5

Addressing concerns about the team’s position, team President Roy Eisenhardt didn’t seem alarmed. “You just wait for the whole thing to come together,” he said. “You just can’t panic by trading bodies and moving bodies around.” At the same time, he disclosed, without naming names, that the club was in trade talks with the San Francisco Giants and the New York Yankees.6

But team concerns could not detract from what Henderson had done. The Sacramento Bee reported, “A crowd of 39,275 watched some stiff-armed pitching, errant fielding and hitting that often hinged on luck. The most credible performance of the day belonged to Oakland’s Rickey Henderson, who in the nightcap stole four bases, collected three hits and batted in three runs.”7

Henderson gave part of the credit for his performance to skipping batting practice because “I’d been wasting all my hits in BP.” Henderson had five hits in the doubleheader, raising his batting average to .271. And despite his frustration that he was “mad because I’m not helping the club win,” Henderson was not the problem. The A’s leadoff hitter was leading the AL in runs (46), walks (57), and, of course, steals.8

According to news accounts, after his fourth steal of the day Henderson heard from teammate Lopes that the record for steals in a single game was six.9 This may have been on Henderson’s mind when he reached base in the fifth inning but was picked off. Again, in the eighth with a 10-3 lead, Henderson could have tried to add to his total but manager Martin flashed the “don’t-go” sign. Martin had said earlier that he would not be going for “cheap” steals.10

Henderson’s baserunning exploits are remarkable. In 1980, his first full season, he led the majors with 100 stolen bases. In the shortened 1981 season, he again led the majors with 56 steals, then added a phenomenal 130 more in 1982. Henderson stole 100 or more bases three different times and led the AL in steals 12 times. He was a first-ballot Hall of Famer.

Tom Boswell summarized many of Henderson’s feats: “In the past 100 years, only three players – Lou Brock, Tim Raines and Vince Coleman – have half as many steals as Rickey. For decades, [Ty] Cobb was considered a terror because he stole 892 bases in 24 seasons, the American League record. Henderson topped that in his first 12 seasons.”12

The “Man of Steal” indeed.

Sources

In addition to the sources cited in the Notes, the author consulted Baseball-Reference.com and Retrosheet.org.

https://www.baseball-reference.com/boxes/OAK/OAK198205302.shtml

https://www.retrosheet.org/boxesetc/1982/B05302OAK1982.htm

The author also consulted:

Thorn, John, Phil Birnbaum, and Bill Deane, eds., Total Baseball, 8th Edition (Toronto: Sport Media Publishing, 2004).

Notes

1 Billy Ball was an informal style of play utilized by Billy Martin when he managed the A’s in the early 1980s. “Billyball is Billy Martin’s style of baseball. Like all managers, he likes the longball, but in its absence he’ll settle for a steal here, a steal there, hit-and-run plays and above all squeeze bunts.” “Billyball Makes a Rare Appearance,” Petaluma (California) Argus-Courier, August 21, 1982: 6.

2 Bob Slocum, “Billy the Kid Has Grown Up,” Modesto (California) Bee, May 25, 1982: 3. Noting that the A’s had been favored to win the division for the second year in a row, Slocum wrote, “But the team has been struck down by problems – both physical and mental ones. It has lost health. It has lost pitching. It has lost hitting. It has lost defense. It has lost confidence. And the A’s are careening along discouragingly, buried in fourth place.” From May 18 through the first game of the May 30 doubleheader, the A’s lost nine of 11 games.

3 Kit Stier, “A’s Split, Don’t Plan Mass Deals,” Oakland Tribune, May 31, 1982: 36.

4 R.E. Graswich, “A’s Break Detroit Hex, Henderson Runs Wild,” Sacramento Bee, May 31, 1982: 29. It was reported that teammate Lopes informed Henderson during the game that the record for steals in a single game was six, not seven as Henderson believed. The record was in fact six by Eddie Collins twice in 1912 and since equaled by Otis Nixon, Eric Young, and Carl Crawford. See Glenn Schwarz, “Henderson Can’t Dash His Guilty Feeling,” San Francisco Examiner, May 31, 1982: 56.

5 Graswich, 29.

6 Stier, 29. By the end of the 1982 season, Billy Ball had run its course. The A’s finished with a record of 68-94 and a fifth-place finish, 25 games behind the Angels. Martin was fired after the season. See “A’s Give Billy Martin Freedom to Job Hunt,” Camarillo Star (Ventura, California), October 21, 1982: 17.

7 Graswich, 29.

8 Schwarz, “Henderson Can’t Dash His Guilty Feeling”: 53.

9 Schwarz, 56.

10 Schwarz, 56.

11 Schwarz, 56.

12 Thomas Boswell, “Rickey Henderson Was a Nuisance and a Showman and a Baseball Marvel,” Washington Post, December 22, 2024, https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/2024/12/22/rickey-henderson-death-steals-numbers/, accessed January 7, 2025.