A’s Glad They Got Productive Rickey Henderson

Rickey Henderson is alive and, well, thriving in Oakland. The struggle of his 65 games with the New Yankees this season is behind. It is only 17 games since his return home but in that short time, the Oakland Athletics have seen enough to know he remains a special player.

“He’s handled himself like a total professional in every way,” A’s Manager Tony La Russa said Sunday. “We gave up a lot to bring him back, but not too much. There is no doubt in my mind that Luis Polonia is going to be a plus for the Yankees. He does a lot of things like Rickey but not quite as much. When Rickey is right, he’s arguably the best in the game.”

Rickey has been oh so right since the June 21 trade. Line drives have been jumping off his bat, his on-base percentage with the A’s is a phenomenal .513 and he has scored 22 runs.

No, there isn’t anybody quite like Henderson when he gets it going. If he wasn’t himself the first 2 1/2 months, look at how he can restore perspective of his worth in less than three weeks. Bottom-line baseball is runs scored, and nobody in the majors has more than Henderson’s 63.

The A’s have been struggling, waiting for the return of Dennis Eckersley from the disabled list and Jose Canseco from minor-league rehabilitation. They are second in the American League West, 1 1/2 games behind the California Angels. They have scored only 17 runs in their past four games and Henderson has eight of those. “We’re 8-9 with him and we’d be about 4-13 without him,” said A’s General Manager Sandy Alderson.

Alderson, utilizing scouting reports, engineered the deal with the Yankees. He looked beyond the .247 Henderson was hitting and put his faith in a .394 on-base percentage. “If he can do that (on-base percentage) the rest of the way,” Alderson said, “that would be good enough for us.

“We realized they weren’t going to give away a Rickey Henderson for nothing. Eric Plunk has pitched very well for them. Polonia is a good player, and he certainly is a crowd-pleaser. But there’s only one Rickey Henderson.”

On the plane trip from New York, the 29-year-old Henderson did some soul-searching of his own. He was going home, and while that was intense gratification, somewhere up there on Cloud 9 he recalls wondering whether not being wanted in New York demanded any changes in his playing approach.

Rickey wanted to remain Rickey, instant offense on the bases, but he decided upon modification. He would abandon, at least temporarily, the snatch catch, that one-handed swipe of a fly ball across his chest that was as indelibly his as Pete Rose running to first after a walk.

“I want to see the player Rickey Henderson is,” he said Sunday. “I got to thinking people might think I’m a hot dog. Right now I’m going to do the basic things. I look back at some of the stuff and I thought, let’s go with basics. I don’t want people to think I’m a hot dog.”

The A’s, when healthy, have an abundance of talent. Henderson knew he wasn’t coming to be the show but to add to it. Dave Parker sensed where Rickey was coming from soon after Henderson joined the A’s.

“He’s made a lot of money,” Parker said. “You start to look at things in a different perspective. He’s home, he’s with a good ballclub and he’s looking to be a part of what he’s missed. That’s winning it all. We all have the same goal here.

“Players on a lot of other teams may have the same goal but it’s not as realistic. Rickey hasn’t done anything but shine since he’s been here. I don’t see how anybody could have any problem with him. He’s low-key. I spend a lot of time with him on flights. Play cards, laugh. Heck of a guy. I’ve spent time with a lot worse people in this game, believe me. I think he’s come over to conform to team rules, and do everything in a basic way to be successful.”

Parker’s assessment is on target. “To be an all-time king of stolen bases is important to me,” said Henderson, who is fourth with 830 steals, 108 behind Lou Brock. “But I want to get that ring. The ultimate stuff is to be part of a unit that is the best.”

He became convinced it wasn’t going to happen for him with the Yankees. “There’s always confusion, always change,” he said. “They don’t get to know each other enough to believe in each other.”

He is summing up rather than knocking because he still wishes he could have been with a Yankee winner. “I have no regrets about New York. I would never say I wouldn’t play there,” said Henderson, who remains unsigned beyond this year and is eligible to be a free agent.

“I wanted to win there. We had one chance, ’85. We should have won. But there was the same old problem near the end. Too much confusion. Yet I still follow them on my satellite and check their boxscores. I miss some of those guys. If there are guys you want to play with, they are guys like Jesse Barfield.

“I scored a lot of runs for Don Mattingly. He’s going to miss me. I’m going to miss him, too. We became good friends. I wish those guys well. I wish they could win their division. But I don’t think they will. Too much confusion.”