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The best of Rickey being Rickey

From the Newsday archives, we give you Rickey's greatest hits

By Jim Baumbach

July 12, 2007

Rickey Henderson is back in uniform and on a major-league roster, albeit in the coaches section. But we all know being the Mets hitting coach is not his first choice of an occupation. All year he's been saying he thinks he can still play in the majors, even at age 48. Just give Rickey a chance.

So you bet Henderson will feel some jealousy when he works in the batting cages with Julio Franco, who happens to be four months and two days older than Henderson. (UPDATE: So much for that. Newsday's Ken Davidoff reports the Mets will be replacing Franco today with Lastings Milledge.)

And, really, there's no telling what Rickey will do, or say, over the final two-and-a-half months of this 2007 season. Because Rickey is Rickey, as we have heard so many times from so many people, including, yes, Rickey.

There's been so many stories told about Rickey, it's often hard to remember what's truth and what's fiction. He's well known for not remembering his teammates' names, and one of his former teammates once told me a story about how Rickey was forced to stand on the team bus and list everyone's names. Of course, he couldn't do it.

Then there's the story that Tony Gwynn likes to repeat, about how when they were teammates on the Padres Gwynn offered Rickey a prime seat on the team bus because, he explained, Rickey had tenure. As the story goes, Rickey responded with something to the effect of, "What are you talking about? Rickey's got 17 years."

In search of more Rickey stories, I dug deep into the Newsday archives this morning, reading through as many Rickey quotes as I could find. Here's the best of them.

***

Rickey's years with the Yankees were quite newsworthy, though that had as much to do with George Steinbrenner being in his prime, firing managers at will. But Rickey did his part to add to the bizarre clubhouse atmosphere.

-- On Billy Martin's rule that players must show part of their stirrup, Henderson said, "Tomorrow I'm going to put a big bucket in the middle of the [clubhouse]. We're all going to throw our socks in there and I'll burn them."

-- On a private meeting with George Steinbrenner to discuss his criticisms, Rickey insisted he wasn't bothered one bit. "I'm like a branch floating in the breeze," he said.

-- On manager Lou Piniella putting him in centerfield, "Centerfield? I ain't playing centerfield. I don't care. I ain't playing there." (This quote seems to me to be the best of Jim Mora's "Playoffs?" and Allen Iverson's "We're talking about practice!" combined into one.)

-- But nothing topped the start of spring training in 1989 for Rickey, considering for the fifth straight season with the Yankees he did not show on the report date. This, however, did not please new manager Dallas Green.

Not that Rickey cared. He had his own explanation, saying he flew from Oakland to Atlanta to Baltimore to Miami to Fort Lauderdale, then found out he had no hotel reservations for spring training. "Yeah, I was ticked off," he said. "I had no place to stay. You're calling me and telling me to come to spring training. You don't have a place [for me] to stay. Why come to spring training?"

The story was vintage Rickey. Told Green was not happy with him, he said, "Upset with me? The manager ain't even met me. How can he be upset? What can he be upset for? I might be early. He said I'm late . . . I have business. I have things I've got to do before I get to spring training . . . My itinerary told me to be here today. Their itinerary told me to be here Wednesday. My itinerary told me to come here Thursday and be dressed Friday. I guess they misprinted it."

Even then, people were using the Rickey being Rickey phrase, including Rickey himself.

"Rickey's gonna be Rickey. Period. No matter what I'm going to do or play or come here early, I'm gonna be Rickey. Rickey is not going to change and not be himself. I've been in this world too long to try to change Rickey and what he does . . . My mother don't even try to change me. She raised me, but she ain't gonna change me."

But what is 'being Rickey?' . . . What is 'being Rickey?' . . . Doin' his own thing? What is it I'm doing different? What am I doing? I didn't come on a day that he said. I came when I could make it."

-- Speaking of Rickey's mother… he said after the A's won the World Series that season that he wanted to be a football player, but his mother, Bobbie, wouldn't let him. Rickey was still angered by that. "If she had let me go to college," Rickey said, "I could have become Bo Jackson before Bo Jackson." But… does Bo know Rickey?

-- Remember when Rickey broke Lou Brock's stolen base record and proclaimed over the loudspeaker, "Today, I am the greatest of all-time." That's not all he did. The day before, Henderson arrived in the clubhouse and handed out specially made flyers with the words, "I was there when Rickey Henderson broke Lou Brock's all-time stolen-base record of 938 with steal number 939." He also had t-shirts commemorating the event ready to go.

-- Here's a good Rickey being Rickey moment. During the 1992 season Rickey was unhappy with his contract, which was a common theme during his career. He told the Sacramento Bee, "'I'm not happy, so I'm going to ask to be traded. It's been going on too long. I don't think I'm treated fairly. They don't deserve what I do." Of course one day later he back-peddled, saying, "You are fools. It's a big joke. Rickey tricked everybody. Thank you all."

-- Now let's fast forward to Rickey's short but eventful time with the Mets. He explained on his first day of spring training in 1999 that part of the reason he doesn't always know teammates' names is because, "I like nicknames." And, also, he said, "I never get that close to pitchers."

-- He started camp just 1-for-20, but he wasn't worried. "If Rickey had to get on base right now, Rickey would."

-- He enjoyed a fine 1999 season at the plate, but his play quickly became overshadowed by the show he put off the field. He grew irate at Bobby Valentine for taking him off the field for a defensive replacement during a playoff game, which essentially was the turning point with the Mets. He started the 2000 season unhappy, though in a way only Rickey can be unhappy. "I came here, I was a happy man today. I'll be happy tomorrow. Even if I'm talking unhappy, I was happy." Then, at the start of the season, "When Rickey's not happy, that's not good." Two days later, "My head ain't on right… I'm in a bad situation, a bad way. I hate it. I hate where I am." He went on to say he had a "garbage contract," which he partly blamed his agent for. But it wasn't meant to be, and the Mets released him in May. "I'm going fishing," he said.

-- And, one final story I came across was a bizarre shouting match Rickey had with none other than El Duque during a spring training game in 2002. It wasn't clear what exactly bothered El Duque. He began yelling and they eventually had to be held back. "He needs to grow up a little bit," Rickey said. "I ain't a kid. When I broke into the game, he was crawling on his hands and knees. Unless he's as old as I am. He probably is."

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