THE WORLD SERIES : New York Mets vs. Boston Red Sox : Red Sox’s Henderson Picks Right Time to Make a Name for Himself

Like a stunning, solitary rose in an Indian summer garden, every so often there’s a late bloomer, a player on the fringes of baseball’s consciousness who unexpectedly spreads his petals in the playoffs and World Series for the nation’s pleasure. You might have heard his name before, but you can’t say much about him. It happened with Gene Tenace in 1972, with Bucky Dent in 1978, with Rick Dempsey in 1983. Last year there was Buddy Biancalana. Now the wheel of fortune seems to have landed on 28-year-old Dave Henderson from tiny Dos Palos, Calif. Let’s turn over the letters, Vanna, and see what we’ve got.

Through the first five games of the Series, Henderson was Boston’s leading hitter, .444 on eight for 18. He was the one Red Sox with two hits in the first game, had a home run off Dwight Gooden and two RBI in the second, and scored Boston’s run in the third. But even if he doesn’t get another hit for the rest of his life, he’ll always be cherished in Fenway Park. Because without him nobody would be here watching baseball. They’d be in Anaheim. Boston was one strike away from spring training when Henderson calcified Donnie Moore’s two-and-two changeup in Game 5 of the American League playoff. If that isn’t Fiskian, what is?

“We were going home,” Boston shortstop Spike Owen said flatly. No doubt about it, Vinny. “He got us where we are.”

Owen and Henderson played together in Seattle earlier this season. You all know Seattle, baseball’s version of the Foreign Legion. (The Mariners have been looking for a few good men. Apparently very few.) They were traded to the Red Sox on Aug. 19. For Henderson, who was doing such serious pine time they were polishing his shoes with Pledge, it was like getting paroled. “I was ready to leave,” Henderson said. “I was in the West for five years and pretty unknown really. This was the chance to start my career over, and do it on a first place team.”

Henderson had been a regular outfielder and a pretty good power hitter for the Mariners since 1983. (Curiously, he and Steve Henderson were both in same Seattle outfield in 1983 and 1984 -- all they needed was Rickey, and the three unrelated Henderson outfielders could have gone on “To Tell The Truth” posing as the Alou Brothers. “Steve had more years in the game than I did. I was known as The Other Henderson.”) After Dick Williams replaced Chuck Cottier as the Seattle manager earlier this season, Henderson was displaced by the formerly wandering John Moses and became known first as The Forgotten Henderson, and then as The Gone Henderson.

A lifetime .255 hitter, Henderson harbored no illusions about his role for Boston. “I was an insurance policy,” he acknowledged. “I’m smart enough to know I don’t beat out Jim Rice, Dwight Evans or Tony Armas. But I was good enough to play in Seattle -- only they didn’t think so.” Henderson, a genial, self-effacing man smiled embarrassedly. Benched in Seattle! Oh, mama, could this really be the end?

Until the playoff Henderson hadn’t seen much action for Boston, just 51 at-bats. His 10 hits and three hardly recommended his offense, so he was used primarily as a late-inning defensive replacement for Armas. But Armas crashed into the wall while chasing down a Doug DeCinces double in Game 5. Henderson came into the game, and by its end he was being measured for a monument in Kenmore Square. “What can I say?” Henderson said, not displeased at having to tell the story again. “Donnie Moore threw a good pitch. I wasn’t supposed to hit it. I’d been sitting the bench. You sit, you lose your stroke, you don’t have an idea up there. He throws that pitch 10 times, and I’ll probably miss it 10 times.”

But not, as we know, that time. The most fun for Henderson was “going around the bases knowing my Mom and Dad were watching, knowing my whole town was jumping up and down. Then, getting to home plate and seeing the whole team out there to greet me. You can tell from their eyes that they felt new life.” From that moment on, Henderson truly felt like he was part of the Red Sox, who won that game -- on Henderson’s sacrifice fly in the 11th -- and the following four with him in center.

Is it Wally Pipp time? “Don’t make too much of that,” Henderson said, grinning. But for a man without a contract, this past week hasn’t been a bad time to launch a salary drive. Three months ago nobody east of Spokane knew who he was. Now his phone is constantly ringing, and 50 million know his nickname is “Hendu.” Nice work if you can get it. (Hendu, with its closing “oooooh” sound, reminds me of the David Letterman bit where he mentions a ballplayer named Lou, and explains that fans aren’t really yelling “Boooooo” when he’s announced, but “Looooooouu.” Then, when one of his jokes gets booed, Letterman claims, “They’re not really saying ‘Boooooo,’ they’re saying, ‘Daaaaavve.’ ”)

It’s not inconceivable that by next spring Hendu -- a nickname he abhors by the way; he far prefers the less exotic “David” -- could be a serious candidate for an outfield job here. As modest as he appears to be, when pressed he allowed, “They’re not blind. They’ve got to feel they’ve got a quality centerfielder here.” Nor is it even inconceivable that when the Series is over he could be driving the car they give the MVP. But talk like that is where Henderson draws the line. “I’d be embarrassed if I won it. It should go to one of these guys who have been here all year,” he said, sweeping his arms out as if to enfold the whole Red Sox clubhouse. “They’re the ones who got us here.” A point, the Angels might argue, of some contention.