I'm finishing up my Rickey-RBI, a game in which I've taken 10 different Rickey Henderson teams (he bats lead-off for all of them), and put them into one bad-azz game.
Here are the teams: '82 Oakland; '86 Yankees; '90 Oakland2; '93 Toronto; '96 San Diego; '97 Anaheim'; '99 Mets; 2000 Seattle; 2002 Boston; and 2003 Los Angeles (he sucked in this one).
I've taken care that the only other player to appear more than once, aside from Rickey, is John Olerud. The prick was on the '99 Mets, '93 Blue Jays, and 2000 Mariners and he was way too good to just leave off the game.
This of course brings up the infamous story involving Rickey and Johnny O. it may be an urban legend, but it goes like this: When Rickey came out to Seattle in 2000 from the Mets he went up to John Olerud during practice and asked what was the deal with the hard hat on the field [it is well known that Olerud wears a hard hat when fielding due to an aneurysm he experienced in college]. Olerud told him. Rickey, silent for a moment, said that that was the craziest thing 'cause he remembered playing on the same team with another guy who did that back in New York....[they were teammates the previous season]
First Question: When Rickey stole his ungodly 130 bases in 1982 does this warrant the maximum 148 "vince coleman" rating for the game OR one more than that at 150? I think the later.
Second Question: I personally think this is the greatest idea for an RBI game, but are there other players that would work almost as well? I know Mike Morgan played for more than 10 different teams, but since his is a pitcher it would be difficult to justify having him hog up one of the four spots on EVERY team! Jesse Orosco has played for his share--but same problem with him as a pitcher. Todd Zeile may have done it, but man, is there any player more BORING than Todd Zeile? I seriously doubt it.
this is an awesome idea for a rom and rickey is the man for the idea. I would love to have a copy of this rom. When are you going to upload it to this site?
I will definitely post my Rickey-RBI when I'm done. Currently I've put all of the stats and lineups for every team into an excel file. I still need to run a few formulas to "scientifically" determine the appropriate PWR, CNT and SPD ratings. (all thanks to nightwulf and the marquisEBX guy).
It is pretty fun to do, but takes some time to do right.
I just wish that my OTHER favorite player, Will Clark, actually played on a team w/ Rickey.
they don't even have a team in common. That is quite impressive considering that Rickey has played for 3/4ths the AL west (clark has the other 4th), 3/5ths the AL east (clark played for one), and 2/5ths the NL west. How did they miss each other?
will clark and Henderson did play AGAINST each other in the Earthquake world series in '89, though. Clark hit .250; I don't remember what rickey did, but I'm sure he dominated. It was kind of cheap how Dave Stewart pitched game one then w/ the game three cancelled w/ the earthquake the A's came back w/ Stewart game three... they should have used whoever was SUPPOSED to start that game....
bastards.
I've decided to go w/ the 1980 A's team for Rickey (instead of '82) and the '85 Yankees (instead of '86). I love that Tony Armas was such a force in 1980! Rickey hit over .300 w/ 100 bags in 1980; in 1982 he was in the .260s w/ 130 bags. 9 hrs and 10 respectavely. I have to go w/ the higher batting average, since the stolen bases are only represented by a speed number--and either way he'll be at the maximum.
On the '85 Yanks, Mattingly drove in 145 runs. crazy. Pretty interesting to comb through some of these old teams. I had totally forgotten how stacked the 1993 Blue Jays were w/ Olerud, Devo, Molitor, Carter, Robbie Alomar, etc.
Great idea about a Rickey rom.
I was looking at players trying to come up with another rom, but usually players fall up short. Dave Winfield could have an interesting one, but he'd only have 6-8 teams. Same with Tim Raines. So I came up with another idea.
What about a vs. rom? Take two guys that had some other connection and take their best 5 teams. I just thought of many applications of this:
1. Take a HOF class ('99 Ryan, Brett, Yount, Cepeda or '01 Winfield, Puckett, Mazeroski).
2. End a who was the best debate (best CF ever Mays, Snider, Cobb, Mantle, DiMaggio, Speaker, etc.?)
3. (since someone else is going to say it) the best moustache team vs the most ugly teams.
4. Pick two rivals (hard to think of this one, but Clemens/Piazza or Buckner/Wilson or Zimmer/Pedro).
Mike
For the 'stash idea one could use the A's of the early 70's!!!
Rollie Fingers and Sal Bando all the way!
From whitecleats.org's photo archive (http://www.whitecleats.org/photos/) ...
(http://www.whitecleats.org/photos/fingers1.jpg)
Yikes.
Nightwulf
Sweetness.
I'm pretty sure the Rickey and Olerud story really happened. I remember hearing about on TV a couple years ago but can't remember where. I think it might have been Peter Gammons talking about it.
I still laugh out loud when I think of that Olerud story when Rickey was traded to the Mariners. "I used to play with a guy that wore a batting helmet all the time."
The Rickey/Olerud story is true. I read somewhere that Olerud confirmed it.
Rickey deserves to be the maximum speed RBI allows. Is it possible to be faster than Vince?
anybody else think that the rickey shades pic also looks like "eazy-e" from NWA or something like that? one thing's for sure, rickey is "dope man".
If only we could get rickey to pose with an Oakland Raiders hat..and maybe holdin' a 40 or a glock--then he WOULD be Eazy-E.
The Rickey Rom is getting there. I'm almost done. Have to complete the pitcher's attributes, then do some testing.
Awesome. This might be the rom that I have looked forward to the most.
REAL MUTHAPHUCKIN' G