Reggie was a star and the Yankees, like how Yankees do, threw money at him. 29, 1976, Jackson, the prize catch in the first-ever batch of MLB free agents, signed a five-year, $3.5 million contract with the New York Yankees. Reggie Jackson was one of the first, and splashiest, of the big free agent contracts in the era following Flood, contracts that have come to define the game. Flood lost the case (and his career), but it led to the establishment of free agency. Kuhn in front of the US Supreme Court in 1972. Hank Aaron breaks Babe Ruth’s home run record in 1973, bookending the first era of integration - a Black player breaks the most sacred of all records set by the most sacred of all players.Ĭurt Flood challenges the reserve clause in 1969, ultimately arguing his case in Flood v. Jackie Robinson breaks the colour bar in 1947, ushering in the first era of integration. 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.It's remarkable how so much of baseball in the middle of the 20th century is defined by the actions of Black players. 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. And it’s a story of a sea change in sports, when athletes gained celebrity status and Black players finally earned equitable salaries. “If you cut Rickey Henderson in half, you’d have two Hall of Famers,” the baseball historian Bill James once said.īut 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. He holds the record for the most stolen bases in a single game, and he’s scored more runs than any player ever. “Seldom does a sports biography-especially a page-turner-so comprehensively explain the forces that made an icon the way they are.” – Sports Illustratedįrom 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.įew names in the history of baseball evoke the excellence and dynamism that Rickey Henderson’s does.

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