Henderson : Backup Center Fielder Takes Center Stage After Armas’ Injury

Dave Henderson’s day at the ballpark began as usual. He dressed. He practiced. He sat.

And sat.

And sat.

Henderson is accustomed to it. Center used to be his best position; now it’s sedentary.

So there he was, minding his own business Sunday at Anaheim Stadium when Red Sox starter Tony Armas hurried toward the center-field fence in pursuit of Doug DeCinces’ second-inning line drive. The ball thumped against the sparsely padded fence, followed soon thereafter by Armas. By the time the ball was retrieved, DeCinces was trotting into second and Armas was limping back to center.

And so it was that a twist of an ankle produced a twist of fate.

Armas attempted to continue playing, but he left the game after popping out in the fourth inning. By then, his ankle was swollen and beginning to show the color purple. He couldn’t hit. He couldn’t run. He couldn’t throw.

“The best thing for me was to come out,” Armas said.

Out he went and in came Henderson, who normally doesn’t make an appearance until the eighth or ninth innings, if that. Henderson is considered a defensive replacement, which is a nice way of saying, little used. He had appeared in 36 regular-season games, but had only seven starts, since being acquired from the Seattle Mariners on Aug. 19.

“Tony’s a gamer, he’s going to stay in the game if he can. But he just couldn’t play anymore,” Henderson said.

“I asked to come out,” Armas said. “We were going to win, and I know Henderson can do the job, too. The best thing for me was coming out of the game. I don’t want to go out there and fool myself. That’s crazy. Anyway, (Henderson) came through.”

Henderson took Armas’ place in center. Along comes the sixth inning . . . two outs, DeCinces on second, Bobby Grich at the plate, the Red Sox winning, 2-1.

Grich, who had been struck out twice by Boston starter Bruce Hurst, was one pitch from another K. An evening earlier, Grich had delivered a game-winning RBI single. This time, he sent a line drive toward left-center, and Henderson.

“I just went after the ball,” Henderson said. “I thought I had it all the way.”

For a moment, he did. Then his left wrist slapped against the top of the wall, and the ball fell across the barrier for an unlikely glove-aided home run.

Grich circled the bases with glee. He jumped and then raised his fist into the air. Later, he took a curtain call.

Henderson stood fuming in center.

“I thought I should have caught the ball,” he said.

Now the Angels had a 3-2 lead with the added advantage of starter Mike Witt. All seemed safe.

But if anything, this was Henderson’s game, as much as Saturday night’s Angel win was Grich’s. Goat to hero and all that.

Henderson struck out in the seventh to end the inning. The tying run stood on first.

In the ninth, Henderson made another appearance. The score was 5-4, Don Baylor’s two-run homer had seen to that. There were two outs, and Henderson was facing reliever Donnie Moore and a 2-and-2 count. He fouled off two more pitches and then stepped away.

“I had to step out of the batter’s box, collect my thoughts,” he said. “You just go for it and you don’t think about failing.”

Back in the Red Sox bullpen was reliever Joe Sambito.

“We were all talking, ‘Yeah, he’s going to hit a home run. He’s going to hit a home run.’ And he did.”

Sure enough, Henderson pulled Moore’s next pitch over the left-field fence to give the Red Sox a short-lived 6-5 lead.

Sambito was stunned, to say nothing of the Angels.

“I think we half meant it,” Sambito said of the bullpen talk. “It was wishful thinking, that’s what it was.”

And what of a certain Henderson miss of an earlier Moore pitch?

“He was just setting (Moore) up,” Sambito said. “Ted Williams used to do that. Ted Williams teaches that throughout the organization: Swing bad at the first one because you know you’ll get the same pitch again.”

Said Henderson: “It was a big hit. It came at the right time. I don’t get too many chances to do that.”

But Henderson knew what he had done. He has hit enough homers to know the difference between a double and something over the fence.

“Right when I swung (I knew),” he said. “I hit the ball solid out of the park. When I hit it like that, I knew it was gone.”

As for those precious chances, another one arrived in the 11th with the score tied, 6-6, and bases loaded with no outs. Up stepped Henderson.

“I haven’t been playing enough to be looking for a certain pitch,” Henderson said. “I just wanted to get the ball in the air,”

He did better than that; he hit a deep sacrifice fly to center. Gary Pettis never had a chance as Baylor hurried home with what would become the winning Red Sox run.

Depending on the condition of Armas’ ankle, Henderson most likely will return to the bench for Game 6 on Tuesday. He’ll sit and watch and perhaps think back to Sunday. What nice thoughts to occupy the time.