This is not a post about baseball, although baseball provides the backdrop. Rickey Henderson is one of the greatest characters ever to wear a uniform. While he played for many teams in his career, he started with my Nana's favorite, the Oakland A's. And since I was born and grew up in a town only half an hour north of Oakland, the A's became my team too.
Rickey has more goofy stories and quotes surrounding him than any other player except for Yogi Berra. He was a career lead-off hitter and destroyed the record for stolen bases. A shoo-in for the Hall of Fame.
But Rickey was also an illeist, a person who often refers to himself in the third person. This led to some unusual situations.
For example, in the off-season, Rickey was already amped to be on the field. So he called Kevin Towers, the general manager of his current club, the San Diego Padres, and left the following message:
"Kevin, this is Rickey. Calling on behalf of Rickey. Rickey wants to play baseball."
Now maybe you'd think that Rickey made this call as a joke. Not likely! Numerous reports over his career had Rickey standing naked in front of a full-length mirror in the locker room before a game repeating the same phrase over and over, "Rickey's the best. Rickey's the best."
He did this with a straight face and other ballplayers around. I doubt I could pull it off alone without laughing.
Another oft-repeated story involves Rickey talking to himself after a strikeout. As he headed back to the dugout, Rickey was heard mumbling to himself, "Don't worry Rickey. You're still the best."
He was once so proud of a $1 million signing bonus that he framed the check . . . without cashing it. He eventually cashed it only after the finance department of his ballclub called him and asked him to take it to the bank.
In mid-August, once upon a time, Rickey fell asleep on an ice pack and developed frostbite. He had to miss three games.
Here's another one. During the last week of his only year playing for the Boston Red Sox, the Chairman of the club asked Rickey what he would like as a going-away present.
Rickey informed the Chairman that he wasn't going anywhere.
The Chairman repeated the question again, so Rickey said that he wanted the Mercedes of the Red Sox owner, John Henry.
After some thought, the Chairman remarked that it would be difficult for the Red Sox to find the exact same make and model of the owner's Mercedes. After all, Rickey would be with the team for one more week.
Rickey responded, "No, I want his car."
The Red Sox decided to buy Henderson a red Thunderbird. Someone from the team drove the car out onto the field before the last game of the season.
Rickey said, "Whose ugly car is on the field?"
* * *
A base-stealer endures a lot of pain. The activity engenders "fear of the bag." Sliding into it causes a wide variety of injuries, especially over a 162-game season.
Sports writer Peter Gammons covered Rickey's team in the late 80s-early 90s. As Gammon's writes:
I sat in the Athletics' clubhouse during batting practice several times with Henderson during his prime in Oakland from 1989 to 1991. His knees always were taped. So were his fingers. He had elbow pads and ice on his shoulder. "Man," he'd say, "Rickey is in pain."
* * *
He also trashtalked endlessly, sometimes unaware that he was trashtalking.
As Jayson Starks writes:
It was the off day before the start of the '93 World Series. I thought a great angle would be a comparison of the two leadoff hitters. Lenny Dykstra had had a fabulous season and had scored 143 runs, the most by any leadoff man since, who else, Henderson.
So I approached Henderson on the field and started to explain the story. He said, "Who's Lenny Dykstra?"
I laughed. Then I said, "He's the other leadoff hitter."
Henderson said, "There ain't no other leadoff hitter but me."
I tried to keep going with my angle. He didn't see it.
"What's Lenny Dykstra ever done?" he asked.
I started to give the stats. Henderson cut me off.
"Man, why you trying to compare some other guy with Rickey? There's only one Rickey."
And that was that. There was, in fact, only one Rickey. And that will never change. Ever.
-- Jayson Stark
* * *
Rickey was such a successful basestealer that he led the league for almost a dozen years, with the exception of one year, when was sidelined for part of the season by a hamstring injury. Harold Reynolds led the league that year with 60 steals.
After the season was over, Reynolds got a phone call.
As Reynolds described it,
"The phone rings. 'Henderson here.' I say, 'Hey, what's going on, Rickey?' I think he's calling to congratulate me, but he goes, 'Sixty stolen bases? You ought to be ashamed. Rickey would have 60 at the break.' And then click, he hung up."
[The break would be the All-Star break, about halfway through the regular season.]
* * *
So that's Rickey. There are more stories, more quotes, of course. There always are.
A reporter once asked Rickey why he talked so much to himself.
His answer was classic.
“Do I talk to myself? No, I just remind myself of what I’m trying to do. You know, I never answer myself so how can I be talking to myself?”
No comments:
Post a Comment