At about 5:30 p.m. on the last day of June, two old friends met in front of the media gate on the west side of the Oakland Coliseum. It was the first time they’d seen each other in over a year, but they had endured longer stretches.
Their lives were never on parallel tracks. One was a generational ballplayer. The other a part-time baseball scout who spent his days patrolling the streets of Berkeley, Calif., as a police officer.
Rickey Henderson, the Hall of Famer widely regarded as the greatest leadoff hitter and base stealer in baseball history, wrapped his arms around J.