Yankees Send Henderson Back to Oakland for Three Players

After 4 1/2 stormy years in New York, Rickey Henderson is going home.

Henderson, a Bay Area native who was traded by Oakland to the Yankees in December 1984 in a six-player deal, was returned to the Athletics Wednesday for relievers Eric Plunk and Greg Cadaret and Luis Polonia, a part-time starter in left field.

“It kind of shocked me. I thought I’d be a Yankee for a while,” said Henderson, baseball’s single-season leader in stolen bases and fourth on the all-time list. “I thought I’d stay till the end of my career, but Oakland is where I began. It’s a good organization and I’ll have a chance to win a World Series and a chance to get back home.”

Henderson, 29, set the single-season record with 130 steals in 1982 and has 819 career steals. He also broke Bobby Bonds’ career record for home runs leading off the game earlier this season with his 36th.

But Henderson, a career .292 hitter, was batting only .247 with three homers, 22 RBIs and 25 steals for the Yankees this season--and was seeking a new big-money contract to replace the five-year deal he signed after being acquired from Oakland. He had told the Yankees he would not re-sign after the All-Star break and was said to be seeking $8.6 million over three years, about a half-million more than the Yankees had offered.

“It was in my best interest to approve the deal,” said Henderson, who indicated he will still seek a three-year contract from the Athletics. “Oakland was the only place I would accept a trade.

“My wife wanted to be in Oakland, but I wanted to stay in New York.”

The Athletics, who lead the American League West despite the season-long absence of injured slugger Jose Canseco and injuries that have hindered other key players, think Henderson might be the ingredient to put them over the top.

“We expect great things from him, both for the rest of the season and in the future,” A’s General Manager Sandy Alderson said, adding that Henderson accepted the trade “without any cajoling from us.”

“He’s extremely excited,” about joining Oakland, Alderson said.

Henderson said he was starting to come out of his slump and added that his contract situation was hindering his concentration.

“It’s just a matter of time before I started to hit better,” he said. “I’ve been hitting the ball hard, but right at people. I got off to a slow start but I knew it would get better.”

Plunk, a 25-year-old right-hander, and Cadaret, a 27-year-old left-hander, were part of the A’s bullpen, among the best in the major leagues.

Plunk, who was traded from the Yankees to Oakland in the 1984 trade that sent Henderson to New York, was 7-2 with five saves last season and 1-1 with one save and a 2.20 earned-run average in 23 games for Oakland this season.

Cadaret was 5-2 with three saves for Oakland last season and had no record this year in 26 games with a 2.28 ERA.

Polonia, 24, entered 1989 with a .289 career average in 209 games over parts of the last two seasons. He was hitting .286 in 209 at bats with the Athletics and had 13 stolen bases in 17 attempts.

Henderson, who has stolen 80 or more bases six times since coming to the majors with Oakland as a 20-year-old in 1979, has been one of the game’s top offensive players throughout the 1980s. But he has been involved in several controversies as well.

During spring training, Henderson blamed excessive drinking for the late-season collapse that dropped the Yankees to third in the American League East last season. He also blamed racial prejudice on the part of the baseball establishment and the media for depriving him of the recognition he felt he deserves.

Trade rumors heated up last weekend, when a published report said the Yankees had offered Henderson to the San Francisco Giants.

His best major league season was 1985, his first with the Yankees, when he hit .314 with 24 homers, 72 RBIs and 80 stolen bases while scoring 146 runs. He slumped to .263 in 1986, but had a career-high 28 homers and 74 RBIs to go along with 130 runs scored and 87 steals.

Henderson made the American League All-Star team as a starter in 1987, but missed much of the second half of the season with leg injuries, including a pulled hamstring. After Henderson missed a 10-game road trip in which the Yankees went 2-8 and fell out of first place, owner George Steinbrenner issued a statement saying then-manager Lou Piniella wanted Henderson traded for “jaking it” during his recovery from a pulled hamstring.

“When I had the injury, I was really hurt but they never put me on the disabled list,” he later said of his 1987 problems. “They never would sit me down. But, believe me, they’d have let me get well if I was white.”

He hit .305 in 140 games last season with 93 stolen bases, but had only six homers and 50 RBIs.

“I hated to give up Rickey. He played very hard and busted his tail,” said Yankee Manager Dallas Green. “But this trade was for the betterment of the Yankees. We desperately needed pitching. It’s been our Achilles heel.”

Yankee Vice President Syd Thrift said another deal may be in the works.