He’s important enough to get a post of his own here, I say. This was reported within the past hour by Bob Nightengale on Twitter:
Dave Henderson, the gregarious man known as Hendu, died Sunday, one month after getting a kidney transplant. He will be tremendously missed.
Dave Henderson, who had a kidney disease and had recent kidney transplant, sadly died of cardiac arrest. Great, great man
I’ll take this time to share my favorite Dave Henderson story, which I had the chance to tell him personally a few years ago:
With the A’s, he usually played CF. Back then, well before Mt. Davis was a thing, I spent a lot of time in the RF bleachers. As fate would have it, he was assigned to play RF on one of the days I went. I sat next to a group of fans in the first row.
Someone had brought a bag of homemade beef jerky, which we were enjoying. At one point, we got his attention. “Want some jerky, Hendu?” we asked him, which I’m sure came as an odd offer in the middle of a game.
Of course, he started with the “No, no, I can’t, guys. Game’s going on!” sort of general response. But if you know A’s fans, we can be relentless. We kept on him, and finally he gave in between batters: “Okay, toss it over.”
He sampled the jerky, flashed us that big gap-toothed grin of his, and tucked the bag in the back pocket of his baseball pants. Between innings, I looked into the A’s dugout with some binoculars and sure enough, he was passing around the jerky. Ahh, Hendu.
Let’s remember Hendu here.
I also remember him going up at least once during batting practice to sit with the fans who made the “Hendu’s Bad Boy Club” sign. He was that kind of guy.
my favorite is the rickey story where they bet who would hit a HR first, winner gets the name hendu. rickey, naturally, did it and circled the bases yeing “I’M HENDU!” much to the non deight of trhe opposing team
Aw, damn it. He was such a cool player and seemed to love playing so much.
Great story, James.
That’s an awesome story. We have been so blessed to have players like that.
One of the few players that is claimed by numerous fan bases and has pretty much 0 animosity from any of them as well. He will be missed.
What people probably forget about that 9th inning homer in 1986 (which is one of my earliest baseball memories) is the Angels tied it up in the bottom half and had the bases loaded with one out. One more run sends them to the World Series even after giving up a 4-spot in the top half, but Boston gets out of it and Hendu hits the go-ahead SF in the 11th, also off Donnie Moore. Looks like Hendu hurt himself on that first hop, too.
Game 3 in 1989, Hendu quickly ended any hope the Giants might have talked themselves into having during the 10 day earthquake postponement. First inning two-run double off the top of the wall to give the A’s the lead they’d never relinquish. Then solo HRs in the 4th and 5th.
I remember when Hendu was on the squad the same time as Willie McGee and Harold Baines. I loved that threesome. McGee always looked like he was miserable, Baines always looked utterly impassive, and Henderson always looked as happy as heck.
Sadly, Meadowlark Lemon has died as well. Though I never went to see them, my era of the Globetrotters featured Meadowlark and Curly Neal. Might have to look for some old videos.
and lemmy
Wow, hadn’t heard that. Ellsworth Kelly too.
lots od dying, must have to do with cleaning up for tax purposes.