Non-Pink Pink Eye and Rickey Henderson's 939th Stolen Base

May 1, 1991: My Very First Sports Memory

I don’t think I even had pink eye. In fact, I am certain of it. My pre-K teacher thought so though. It made for the first and only time I can ever remember being sent home early from school because I was sick—or not sick as the case may be.

I remember my mother coming to pick me up. That’s how I ended up in front of the television in my room watching Rickey Henderson stealing his 939^th career base, breaking the Major League Baseball record previously held by Lou Brock.

My mother is a diehard Yankees fan. She used to keep a small television in her office at work. Whenever the Yankees played an afternoon game that tv was most likely tuned into the game, often muted for phone calls and meetings, but probably sometimes not.

So surely, she had been watching the Yankees play the Oakland Athletics that afternoon before she received a call from my pre-K teacher about my phantom pink eye. She might have known that Rickey Henderson stood poised to break the stolen base record, but the historic game was on our tv not because of the future Hall of Fame Oakland outfielder about to break the MLB stolen base record, but for the team he has about to break it against.

So there I sat in my room sent home early from school with non-pink- pink eye as Rickey Henderson wearing his dark sunglasses broke from second base, slid headfirst into third ahead of the tag of Yankees third baseman Randy Velarde, and popped up with the base raised above his head in triumph.

As unlikely as it was that I was sent home early that day, that the As happened to be playing the Yankees, that Henderson swiped his 939^th career stolen base at the moment that he did, it is perhaps equally unexpected that this should have remained with me as my very first memory as a sports fan. But so it has. Such is the beauty of sports I suppose.

What is your very first sports memory? Please feel free to share in the comments