Could Ricky Henderson break 5 in the mile in his prime

18rabbitskiing wrote:

Snell wasn't close to being a wraith, he was way more built than any other modern mile champion. He probably had the highest BMI of any olympic champion above the 400M. The fact that someone as muscular as he could hold the world record in the 800 and the mile hows that you don't have to be 5'9 and 130 pounds or 5'10 and under 140 pounds to be world class in the mile / 1500. That seems to be the prevailing view on these message boards but clearly it isn't a requirement to be world class.

Which of these seven words I wrote about Snell are you repeatedly having such a hard time understanding: "He was a wraith compared to Henderson."

Yes, in an absolute sense Snell was sinewy and highly defined and not a wraith, but put both him and Henderson in their prime eras next to each other and Snell would look emaciated. (A side-by-side image search on the two of them plainly reveals their physiques are not even remotely comparable, especially in regards to upper-body bulk and thickness.)

And again, the original point of this thread was not how light (or not) one needs to be to go sub-5 in the mile (Hell, John Fath went sub-4 when he was nearly 200 pounds and running for Fordham), but it was the absurd claim that Rickey Henderson would've been able to do a 4:50 with no specific distance training.

I was security ... wrote:

I was security at arenas, ballpark and stadium when Ricky Henderson played for about a year and a 1/2 which covered two M.L.B. seasons. I was in close proximity to him a couple times per season.

> Henderson was capable of sub-11 100m.

> Henderson was capable of sub-23 200m.

> Henderson was capable of sub-37 300m.

I would not dare guess his 400m and longer ability.

Good take; I always wonder how Bo Jackson would have done in distances, or Deion. But then I realize they would excel at the sprint events (100m to 400m).

i just bought two of his rc yesterday. strange he came up now. and well done letsrun - we inserted "twink" into the conversation yet again (p. 1).

No sub 5 but wow was he good. When he joined the Red Sox later in his career he had more SBs as a player than the Sox had as a team in the same time frame (heard that way back when, assume without references it's true).

-themack

Joe Burrow could easily run a sub-4 mile. He’s a world class athlete.

18rabbitskiing wrote:

I am not sure why there is such a bias against people who aren't twinks being able to run a fast mile. Peter Snell once held the mile world record, won the 800 and 1500 in the same olympics and was chiseled. 5'10 and 175 pounds and just look at how muscular he was. Henderson was 5'10 and 195 in his prime. Snell ran a 3:54 mile over 50 years ago and Henderson only outweighed him by 20 pounds and as it has been shared Henderson was all muscle too.

I'd guess Henderson weighed more than 195 in his prime. I wouldn't trust baseball's listed weights.

18rabbitskiing wrote:

I am not sure why there is such a bias against people who aren't twinks being able to run a fast mile. Peter Snell once held the mile world record, won the 800 and 1500 in the same olympics and was chiseled. 5'10 and 175 pounds and just look at how muscular he was. Henderson was 5'10 and 195 in his prime. Snell ran a 3:54 mile over 50 years ago and Henderson only outweighed him by 20 pounds and as it has been shared Henderson was all muscle too.

It is hard to judge Henderson's cardio capacity but nothing about his physique would prevent him from running a sub 5:00 mile.

This. Heck, Holyfield ran an 800 in 2:10 when he was young and weighed about 210. A five minute mile is very doable for an athlete like Ricky.

Barry Badrinath wrote:

Like, without training at all? It would be close. Give him a couple months to train and no question he could.

Fwiw, he actually did run a 9.4 100-yard dash in high school. That’s a 10.3 100-meters.

How many sub-10.5 guys break 5:00 in the mile? I think it's very possible but I think this is the same as the Lebron conversation. Anything in the 400-800 range they'd be fine. But, without specific training, they're gonna tie up trying to run a fast mile. Look at what just happened to Mu. That's actually a decent comparison to some extent. Good 400 speed. Great at 800. Can maintain through 1200. Cramped up so much they couldn't finish the last 200. & that's a world class T&F athlete. I could see a Lebron or Henderson type running 2:00-2:15 through 800 & then crawling home to a 5:30. Prolly get some faster efforts from point guard types.

hatethisforum wrote:

carmine9 wrote:

Guessing no.

He was a sprinter.

Sprinters cannot run middle or long distance

Ran a mid 10.7 FAT as a senior in HS, and at the end of my college career I broke the 10.3 barrier.

But in middle school my coaches wouldn't let me sprint and I ran a 2:09 800 and a 5:05 1600 in 8th grade.

Thoughts?

Yep. I was a jumper until I blew my cruciates out and had to become a sprinter. Couldn't handle a fast turn and my knee was wobbly.

Still ended up with 10.3, 21.0, 46.4, 1:53 indoors at track practice and outdoors ran 3 minutes for the 1200 outdoor at practice.

Ran 5:30 x country mile as a 10 year old.

R H was not built for more than 80 m, and wouldn't go past one lap.

Professional male booster rocket wrote:

Yep. I was a jumper until I blew my cruciates out and had to become a sprinter. Couldn't handle a fast turn and my knee was wobbly.

Still ended up with 10.3, 21.0, 46.4, 1:53 indoors at track practice and outdoors ran 3 minutes for the 1200 outdoor at practice.

Ran 5:30 x country mile as a 10 year old.

R H was not built for more than 80 m, and wouldn't go past one lap.

I don't think I'll take the opinion of someone who cites their track practice prs all that seriously.

BUT, maybe you're right; Henderson "wouldn't go past one lap"...because he was a millionaire, a future HOFer, and a baseball player. What scenario would he "go past one lap" at any point through most of his prime athletic life, outside of this hypothetical question?

But I assure you, if he spent even a LITTLE bit of time trying to break 5 in a mile, he would have been more than capable.

If a LITTLE bit of time would get him to 5:00, what would his ULTIMATE potential be?

hatethisforum wrote:

My point ultimately being sub 5 isn't what you seem to think it is, especially for talented athletes. I'm sure if Henderson had wanted to, he could have.

Keep in mind, though, thelat the pursuit would not have suited his goals/needs as a baseball player overall. Indeed it would have been to his detriment to make much of a serious go at it.

The OP's claim was the RH could run a 4:50 with no endurance training. He either could have or he couldn't have - I don't see how it really matters if it "suited his goals/needs as a baseball player".

The thing about this type of post, which we see all the time on these threads about "could such-and-such famous jock run a mile/5k/whatever in a certain fairly decent time", is that they only seem to work in one direction: every well-known pro athlete seems to be assumed to be able to run a sub-5 mile just based on sheer talent. But how come it never works the other way - i.e. for track athletes who are clearly very athletically talented (Geb, Bekele, etc) - nobody in their right mind would suggest they could play baseball and hit at least .200, or be fairly competitive at wrestling or weightlifting, etc?

SDSU Aztec wrote:

If a LITTLE bit of time would get him to 5:00, what would his ULTIMATE potential be?

That question is a harder stretch. For example, if in one off season during his prime he spent those few months time trialing over and over for a sub 5 mile, I don't think it would have uncontrollably blown apart his baseball life or his body. In that too me, maybe be he could have pulled off a 4:59.

Might not have been in his BEST interests as a baseball player, but I think he could have done it and gotten back to baseball shape, and maybe it would have even had some slight benefits depending on things.

What was his ULTIMATE potential as a "miler"? No idea, and such training would have been so antithetical to what his best life/athletic goals likely were that I don't know the point of the thought experiment to me.

But, in so far as the basic question, I don't expect that his ultimate potential mile ability would have been nearly as "impressive" as him not really training and being capable of breaking 5. The reason being? He wasn't a distance runner. He woulda topped out pretty miserably by distance runner standards; I would readily admit that.

I think where we disagree is the delta between Snell and Henderson. I saw Henderson up close many times when he was with the Sox as my dad had season's tickets and we'd often go early to catch BP and warm-ups and Henderson would often sign autographs or generally ham it up he was muscular but I don't think he was much more than his listed 195 pounds, remember he's only 5'10. You can also find many pictures of him waring just shorts as you can Snell . Henderson might have been more cut but not by a massive amount. Taking Rickey's listed weight of 195 and compared to Snell's 175 I don't think a 10.5% difference in weight given their equal heights is all that huge. To me for Henderson to make Snell look like a wraith he'd have to be at least 40-50 or more pounds and or if Snell more like a typical miler build like Seb Coe at 5'9 and 120 pounds. When Henderson played alongside Don Mattingly who was 6'0 and 175 very similar build to Snell (Mattingly slightly lower BMI) and if you saw them side by side no one would call Mattingly a wraith.