Sports Thread #2 for 1/12/09: Rice Finally Gets Into Hall of Fame As Henderson Gets In On First Try

Photos from google.com

As Ricky Henderson gets in on his first try into the Hall of Fame ( not a surprise at all), Jim Rice finally was elected into Cooperstown today. It took almost forever for this to happen, when it should have occurred a hell of a long time ago.

Maybe even more curious in the voting today (which is done by the premiere baseball writers in the country for those who don't know) is the fact that 28 voters did not vote for Henderson.

Yes, that's right, 28 voters did not vote for the all time steals leader, runs leader, and lead off home run leader. ESPN's wonderful Jayson Stark put some of these fools in place:

Sorry. Can't help myself. I need to trot out one more Rickey Henderson stat for you.

What did this man do better than every other leadoff man of modern times -- outside of steal more bases and forget all the other guys' names?

Score runs, of course.

I already mentioned he scored more than any player who ever played. So maybe that sounds obvious. But in Rickey's case, the runs he scored didn't just add up because he played so long. They added up because he scored them at such an amazing clip.

Jayson was nice about it, because I would have certified them as "idiots."