Rickey Henderson Was Hyperbole-Proof

When you grow up as a baseball fan, you know the best player born on your birthday. Sharing a birthday with a famous player is a point of pride: You can convince yourself that some measure of their glory reflects on you, or that you too might be bound for great things. I used to feel lucky to be born when I was, instead of on some inauspicious, mundane date like January 25 (career WAR leader: 19th-century pitcher Danny Richardson), February 14 (Pretzels Getzien), or December 3 (Wayne Garrett). If I’d debuted hours earlier, I would’ve been stuck with December 24 (Kevin Millwood now, maybe William Contreras someday, but when I was young … Zeke Wilson?). Instead, I was born on Christmas morning, which made my friends joke about how I had the same birthday as Jesus. But Jesus wasn’t truly born on December 25, and he was just alright. Rickey Henderson was a Christmas baby to brag about. And like Henderson himself, I happily did.