“We traded chocolates, cigarettes and photographs from home
These sons and fathers far away from families of their own
Young Sanders played his squeeze box and they had a violin
This curious and unlikely band of men
Soon daylight stole upon us and France was France once more
With sad farewells we each began to settle back to war”
“Christmas in the Trenches” — John McCutcheon

If you want a good cry, McCutcheon’s classic from his 1984 Winter Solstice album about the Christmas truce during World War I will do it for you, especially this time of year.

If you go on YouTube, an incredible version of the song is on the National WWI Museum and Memorial page that will really bring the season into focus.

The song ends with a tremendous line, “the ones who call the shots won’t be among the lame, and on each end of the rifle, we’re the same.”

McCutcheon’s tune is one I’ve listened to often, but honestly, it’s a different record of his that inspired my “theme” for this week’s column. The folk singer released an album completely filled with baseball songs in 2008 titled Sermon on the Mound.

An excellent video of Rickey Henderson career highlights on YouTube has one of the songs from that album as the background music, and it inspired a column.

Why Rickey Henderson and the holidays?

Simply put, Christmas Day is Rickey Henderson’s birthday. The dynamic leadoff hitter is the all-time leader in stolen bases and in runs scored in Major League Baseball history.

It’s also not like he’s simply got five more stolen bases than anyone else in the game’s history, though.

Rickey stole 1,406 bases in his career. No other player in the history of the game even has 1,000, and only two others in history have topped 900.

It wasn’t like Rickey was a one-trick pony, either.

Henderson hit 297 career home runs and had 4,588 total bases. In fact, only one player who stole more than 500 bases in his career has more career home runs than Rickey, and that’s Barry Bonds, the all-time home run leader.

While he was a complete all-around player, Rickey was well-known for two things - speed and bravado.

Monday, he turns 65, which I have to admit is a crazy number to consider, especially when you look at recent photos of Rickey. You’d wager he and I are months apart in age…not two decades! (Not sure if that says more about him or me, but anyway!)

Henderson’s retirement press conference was a glorious example of that bravado I was speaking of earlier.

“Rickey thinks people want Rickey to quit more than anything,” he said to the gathered press. He later explained that he spoke in third person when disappointed in himself as a way to push himself to do better.

Mind you, the man was 44 years old at his retirement but still considered one of the fastest players in the entire game - if not the fastest.

While MLB was done with Rickey, he wasn’t done with baseball, and he went on to steal 53 bases in 164 games of independent league baseball the next two seasons.

He was inducted into the Major League Baseball Hall of Fame in 2009, and in his acceptance speech, Henderson quipped, “I believe today…if you gave me as many at-bats (as) the runners out there today, I would out-steal every last one of them.”

He loved the game too much to walk away and immediately went into coaching, but like many elite players, he struggled at times to relate to players that were learning skills that came so naturally to him. After two years as a coach for the New York Mets, he was not brought back. However, he still shows up every year at the Oakland Athletics spring training facility and works with young players on their base running skills.

After he broke Lou Brock’s career stolen bases record in 1991, he concluded his speech with an homage to one of his heroes, Muhammad Ali, saying, “I’m the greatest of all time.”

The quote stuck with him as a sign of him being a selfish player, however, and he lamented that.

When he was inducted to the Hall of Fame, he said in part of his speech, “I am now in the class of the greatest players of all time. And in this moment, I am…very, very humble.”

So what does a baseball player have to do with Christmas you might ask?

The holiday season all-too-often can overwhelm us, whether it’s a miles-long shopping list, checkout lines when shopping, food preparation for family and office gatherings, or extended time with family members who may be difficult to tolerate for myriad reasons.

Because it’s the holiday season, we want everything to be “perfect” and impactful. We stress out over every decision because we’re wary of making a mistake that we are certain will ruin the holidays for someone.

Rickey stole 1,406 bases, but he also has the MLB career record for times caught stealing, at 335. One could question whether he was “good” at stealing bases hearing that he’s the all-time leader in being caught attempting a stolen base, but also understand that he stole 1,071 bases when you take away all of his caught stealing, which is still 100 more than any player in the history of the game.

The lesson: be bold, be you, enjoy the season how you want to, as there will be more Christmases (understanding that the cast of characters around the holiday may change).

Nailing 80% of the holidays (Rickey’s career stolen base success rate) “well” is going to leave long-term positive memories from holidays.

The soldiers in WWI ended up turning their guns on one another again immediately after their Christmas truce. However, those who were present for that moment and survived the war relayed it as one of the most impactful Christmas memories in their life.

Perfection of the moment does not cause excellence and memories just like a mistake before, during, or after a moment does not mean that the overall positive experience of an activity is lost.

Go forth and enjoy your Christmas like Rickey - boldly!