Unless you were among the 21,000 at Qualcomm Stadium that night, you probably don’t remember the moment. When Pete Rose topped Cobb’s record for career hits, the game stopped for a lengthy ceremony, and the news was blared across the front pages of the nation’s newspapers. When Barry Bonds passed Hank Aaron’s career home run record, it ended a long ordeal that included questions about whether Commissioner Bud Selig would or should attend the game, and how Aaron should react; whatever you thought about Bonds, you took notice. Rickey had given himself a moment of fanfare and ceremony when he topped Lou Brock’s career mark of 938 stolen bases ten years earlier, raising the bag over his head and declaring, “Lou Brock is the symbol of great base stealing, but today I am the greatest of all time.”

He would ultimately put the stolen-base record in an orbit of its own, piling up 1406, shattering Brock’s record by just under 50%. (Exactly one steal under 50%.) But the steals records should not be the lead item on Henderson’s plaque in Cooperstown.

What’s the most basic statistic in baseball? Runs. It’s the only one you really need to know; all the others are nice, but only one determines who wins or loses. So why do runs get so little respect?

We praise the clutch ability of the man who drives in the run, but what about the guy who put himself in position to score? We treat his run total as the product of other people’s efforts – but isn’t that as true of the RBI man? No one leads the league in RBIs unless there are a lot of men on base ahead of him.

In 1985, Don Mattingly was the American League MVP, hitting .324 with 48 doubles, 35 home runs, and 145 RBIs. That last total was eye-catching, but hardly unmatched; in the previous twenty-five seasons, nine batters had reached 140 RBIs. The same year, batting one or two slots ahead of Mattingly for the Yankees, Rickey Henderson had a .419 on-base average, stole 80 bases, and in 143 games scored 146 runs, the most since 1949 (with no one reaching 140 runs in that time). Which of these teammates caused the other’s success? Rickey’s performance was probably more noteworthy, yet Mattingly outpolled him in first-place MVP votes by 23-0.

Rickey led his league in runs scored five times. Only three players did it more often: Babe Ruth (who else?) with eight, and Mickey Mantle and Ted Williams with six each. Only five others have equaled Rickey’s five: Ty Cobb, George Burns (there’s always one on these lists), Rogers Hornsby, Stan Musial, and Alex Rodriguez. If you’re making a list of the greatest offensive players in baseball history, that’s a pretty good place to start.

In his 1983 Baseball Abstract, Bill James examined Rickey’s 130-steal season of the previous year. James concluded that, taking into account the forty-two times he was caught stealing, and the potentially hittable pitches that his teammates took to give him the chance to run so often, Henderson’s running might not have benefitted the Oakland offense by a single run. I don’t point this out to diminish Rickey’s accomplishments, just to note that his stolen bases are far from his most important.

In twenty-five seasons – and are we sure he’s done? – Rickey Henderson scored more runs than anyone who’s ever played the game. He has been called the greatest leadoff hitter in baseball history, but that doesn’t give him enough credit; as he showed when he dominated the 1989 postseason (1.509 OPS in nine games), he is one of the game’s greatest offensive players, period. No one will ever get elected unanimously to the Hall of Fame, but the man who holds baseball’s most unambiguously important career record is on the short list of those who should have.