Learn more about the late MLB legend’s family. Rickey Henderson was a legend on the baseball field, but he was a father and husband first and foremost. The athlete, who played for nine teams including the Oakland Athletics,

Beneath the theatrics, Rickey Henderson — the best leadoff hitter of all time — was a true baseball virtuoso. Every baseball fan likes a trivia quiz, especially in winter. So, here’s my brain teaser. This player changed teams 12 times, played for nine different clubs and was an outfielder for World Series winners in both the U.S. and Canada.

The first issue of Baseball Weekly, now Sports Weekly, arrived in April 1991. Interviewing Rickey Henderson was crucial. It almost didn't happen.

He’d beat you and he had the flair when he’d run around the bases,” Tony La Russa said of the late Rickey Henderson, “and he wasn’t afraid. He was one of a kind. As good as any player who has ever played the game.

All across the Bay Area, fans mourned the loss of Oakland A's great Rickey Henderson on Saturday. At the Oakland Coliseum fans left flowers for the Hall of Famer.

Early one morning at spring training in 1990, I saw Rickey Henderson sitting at his locker in the Oakand A’s clubhouse. I hit him up for an interview, hoping for a few minutes. I got 45, and came away wondering why nobody had ever talked about this guy’s baseball IQ.

Then I realized Rickey doesn’t get angry when talking about baseball. Or himself. It was the summer of 2004 and he was in the twilight of his career. The big-league portion of it was already over, even if he refused to believe it at the time.