Rickey Roundtrips to the Majors
The Heart of Future Hall of Famer Rickey Henderson beats on as he gets another trip to the bigs with the Dodgers. His time with the Bears have transformed Rickey into something greater, that may live on in a professional baseball uniform long after the legs and arms are unwilling.

Dan Hickling

NEWARK, N.J. - 07.16.03 - Think about it.

There have to be millions of 44-year old guys residing in all the portions of the world where baseball is played. And not one of them has ever done what Rickey Henderson has done.

Or what he is doing now, come to think about it.

As this article goes to press, Rickey Henderson will find himself boarding an airplane from Newark. Destination? The Los Angeles Dodgers. Just as with Jose Canseco before him, the fountain of youth that is the Newark Bears have infused another major league season into the aging bones of Rickey Henderson.

The Independent League's Hall of Famer

Eyebrows everywhere were arched with the news this spring that Rickey Henderson had signed on with the Newark Bears of the independent Atlantic League.

This was Rickey Henderson, folks. Major league baseball's all time base stealer, with 1,403. A member of the rarified 3000 hit club. Hands down the greatest leadoff hitter in history. A Cooperstown plaque just waiting to be cast.

But this was also Rickey Henderson, 44 years old, whose accomplishments, not to mention his birth certificate, are scratched out with papyrus reeds.

Most athletes sense the time to hang it up and move on to the record books. Some play past their time. Sports pundits were evenly split on whether Rickey's bid for another few weeks, months, a year in the majors was a refusal to do a reality check, or the drive of an athlete who can play and doesn't want to be written off by folks looking at his age more than his ability.

Rickey Talks Comeback

"I'm here to get back to the big leagues," he said, following a recent win by the Bears which he helped fuel with a three-run homer.

"If I have to come down here and dominate the league, to prove that I can still can play, I'm going to get back there somehow."

There's no question that he can still dominate. In the Atlantic League.

Batting in his customary lead off spot, Henderson has led the Atlantic in hitting almost all year, hovering around the .370 mark.

Like Elvis Performing Live In Your Living Room

After 24 years in the big leagues, how would one of the game's most flamboyant players take to being a big fish in such a little puddle?

Newark may be just across the river from New York. But in baseball terms, it is light years away.

So how is the superstar who is famed for speaking of himself in the third person doing in the indies? It turns out he's doing just fine, thank you.

Henderson's citizenship has been more than exemplary.

To his Bears teammates, most of whom will never see the inside of a big league park without paying to get in, he has been, by all accounts, an enormously positive influence.

"I wouldn't trade being here with Rickey for anything in the world," said Bears center fielder Mike Piercy, who idolized Henderson as a kid. "I got a chance that nobody ever gets: To be around your childhood role model, and learn from him.  You're almost scared to meet your heroes, because they might not live up to your expectations. But he's been 100 times better than I ever thought."

One of Baseball's Great Enigmas (Look It Up)

Henderson is still one of baseball's great enigmas. The image remains of him from his heyday, breaking Ty Cobb's career record for steals. He stood there, holding the base aloft and proclaimed: "Today I am the greatest base stealer of all time." Something about that chafed people the wrong way.

Remember when he and Bobby Bonilla were playing cards in the New York Mets' clubhouse while a critical National League Championship Series game against the Atlanta Braves was in progress?

That rubbed people raw, too.

"Rickey's been doing what he's been doing for 24 years," says Bears teammate Michael Coleman, who is in Newark trying to salvage his own modest and troubled career. "And that's not going to stop."

Well some things have changed. The infamous third person references aren't heard as frequently these days. While he clearly rules the Bears clubhouse, his dictatorship is a kind and benevolent one.

Just don't take his chair.

Not Barry Bonds Recliner, but an Amazing Simulation

Bears pitcher Rolando Viera found that much out after Henderson, seeing no chair, the one with "Rickey Henderson #24" in Sharpie scrawl on the seat, in front of his locker, went searching for it

Viera had the misfortune of occupying it. But not for long.

"You see this chair?" Henderson barked playfully as he yanked it from beneath Viera. "What does it say?

"Is that your name or mine?"

Viera, red-faced, was apologetic.The chair was returned to its rightful owner, and all was well in Newark, for the time being.

Professor Henderson On Baseball

With Henderson as professor, class is always in session.

  "There's a lot of younger guys down here, and they don't know the game," he said. "So you want to give them some of the tips that you know to help them get better."

He dishes the finer points out freely.

To Danny Clyburn, a once promising Oriole slugging prospect, who has just about run out of chances, it might be a personal hitting clinic.

To Coleman, whose desire has never matched his considerable talents, it might be a  chewing out for nonchalance on the basepaths.

Or to Piercy, a five year pro who has never risen above A ball, it might be a master course on base thievery's finest points.

"I thought I was doing all the right things before. But I'll do something, and he'll smack me in the back of the head and say 'what were you doing? Don't ever do that again.' In the past, everybody would pat me on the back and say good job. But it's been terrific to learn from him. He's turned base stealing into an art form. To hear him break it down is priceless. From what I've heard from guys in the major leagues, he almost never does that for anybody. So I feel fortunate. I wouldn't trade that knowledge for anything."

Skipper Appreciates First Mate

Henderson's influence is fully appreciated by Bears manager Bill Madlock, a four-time MLB batting champion in his own right. Far from being threatened, Madlock says he welcomes Henderson's willingness

"If you don't listen to a guy like Rickey, who you going to listen to?  I tell guys 'you don't know how long he's going to be here. It might be a day, or two months. But you guys should follow behind him and take something from him. Watch the way he sets up pitches, or runs the bases. You guys can learn from that."

It's part of the circle of baseball life to Henderson. The 44 year-old number 24 takes something and passes it along.

When I was young," he said, "I had guys who talked the game, and knew the game. But I was the type of ball player that I wanted to learn. I wanted to be better. I wanted to be the best I could be. So I was willing to go around and ask anyone who was willing to help me. I had a few guys who took me under their wing. I needed someone to worry about me, someone who was willing to listen to me and help me out."

Still, he admits that it's all secondary to getting back to the bigs. He made it with the Dodgers, a team well known for late-season pick-ups of older name talent to achieve a particular purpose in their usual end-of-the-season run against the Giants and D-Backs.

What they want, and what Rickey can give them, may be just a little of the warrior magic that burns in a baseball heart that will beat longer than the legs and arms that it drives on.  He rarely plays in the field these days,and although his on-base percentage still hovers near .500, his best base stealing days are well behind him. As he boards the airplane for L.A., it is Piercy the student, and not Obi Wan Henderson, the master, who leads the Bears in thefts.

For now, the heart beats on. Rickey wants a long-term deal with a team, not an easy thing for a middle-aged base stealer.

"I'll try it again," he said. "I'm going to get back there one day. How long that will take, I don't know. But when I first started out coming out of high school, I didn't know how long it would take to get to the big leagues. But I've got to put the time in to get there. It's something I've got the determination to do. Whatever it takes to get there, I've got to do it."

What Rickey sees of his time with the Bears is another opportunity for his day with a major league club. What his experience with the Bears should tell farm directors and club management is that the Rickey of old may slowly be evolving into the new Rickey, capable of being one of the best hitting and base running instructors in professional baseball.

His days in the sun in a major league uniform may really only just be beginning.

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