Rickey Henderson to Speak as Oakland Tech's new Baseball field is named in his honor

Tomorrow will not only be a big day for the Oakland Tech baseball community, but also for the City of Oakland as a whole. Oakland Tech will welcome home its most heralded son, Rickey Henderson, and name the recently built Tech ball field after him. Although the field has been played on for two baseball seasons now, the finishing touches had to be made, especially for an event of this magnitude. The dedication ceremony will take place tomorrow (Saturday) morning at 10am next to the McDonald's on Telegraph and 45th st.

Please check out our report on the amazing community effort that created the field HERE.

Rickey Henderson, who was recently elected into the Baseball Hall of Fame, graduated from Tech in 1976 and was a standout not only on the baseball field, but also the gridiron, earning a football scholarship to USC. But Rickey was also drafted by his hometown Oakland Athletics, whom he ultimately decided to sign with. Many people say Rickey was better at football when he was at Tech, but his mom did not want him to take the physical beating of football, and so Rickey chose a career in baseball.

Rickey played in the A's minor league system for 4 seasons, never hitting below .300. One thing that shocked me when I look at Rickey's stats however, is that he did not steal a single base in his first three seasons in the minors. He would steal 44 bases in AAA, and would of course go on to break both the single-season and all-time stolen base record.
We could go on and on about the way Rickey played the game, but what made him completely unique was his off field antics. He loved to be in front of the camera and once he was there, he would talk in the third person a lot. Rickey always said how he felt, no matter how it came off and did it the way he wanted to do it. He kept trying to play baseball right up until he was elected into the Hall Of Fame, but my hunch is he would still throw on the uniform if the A's gave him a contract.
For all of us lifetime A's fans, Rickey is the ultimate hero. The hometown kid who played for 14 years here and played with so much passion. Tomorrow Rickey will get the another honor to his name, the baseball field of his alma mater. It will be a great event that you will not want to miss. The event starts at 10am at the Tech field which is on 45th Ave. right off of Telegraph and behind the McDonald's. The gates will open at 9:30am and it will be hosted by Ken Korach, the renowned A's announcer. Rickey will speak, in addition to some special guests, so please come out and show love for the OAL, our hometown hero, and Oakland.