THE WORLD SERIES : OAKLAND ATHLETICS vs. SAN FRANCISCO GIANTS : This Henderson Is Oakland’s Mr. October : Athletics: Dave, the center fielder, plays some long ball with two homers and a double to drive in four runs.

There’s another Henderson who roams the Oakland outfield, a Henderson not named Rickey, and in case anyone this side of Anaheim had forgotten, Game 3 of the World Series Friday night provided an immediate refresher course.

In his first at-bat during the Athletics’ 13-7 victory over the San Francisco Giants, Dave Henderson bounced a baseball off the green metal railing that tops the right-field fence in Candlestick Park.

In his second at-bat, he cleared the right-field fence.

And in his third at-bat, he reached the concrete that sits beyond the fence in center field.

With three swings of the bat, Dave Henderson had come within inches--centimeters?--of elbowing his way into Babe Ruth and Reggie Jackson territory. Three home runs in one World Series game. When Reggie equaled Ruth’s legendary feat in 1977, it not only helped make his baseball career, and his advertising career, but it tagged him with a reputation he milked long into his years as a .240-hitting designated hitter with the Angels.

Mr. October.

Oakland pitcher Dave Stewart calls Henderson “our Mr. October,” but the imagery never really clicked, not before Friday, anyway. On a team that features Rickey Henderson and Jose Canseco, when it comes to name recognition, Dave Henderson ranks a distant third in his own outfield. He’s not even the best-known Henderson in the Oakland lineup.

But look at the numbers:

--1986 World Series: Henderson batted .400 for the Boston Red Sox and hit a ninth-inning home run in Game 6 that seemed to clinch the championship for Boston before a certain ground ball was grounded Bill Buckner’s way.

--1988 World Series: Henderson batted .300 in five games, a feat that got lost and buried by the Dodgers’ dust.

--1989 World Series: Henderson is hitting .300 again, including the three-hit, two-home run performance that pushed the Giants to the brink of elimination in Game 3.

And, of course, there’s Oct. 12, 1986. The worst day in Angel history, brought to them by Henderson, whose ninth-inning home run off Donnie Moore kept Gene Autry out of his first World Series and emotionally devastated Moore--a home run that continues to prompt reporters’ inquiries, even to this late date.

One of the first questions Henderson was asked after roughing up San Francisco pitchers Scott Garrelts and Jeff Brantley was about Moore.

Did Donnie Moore’s suicide affect you?

“Of course,” Henderson replied. “With all the TV shows and the writing (about Moore). He was one of us. He was a baseball player and he died. But we’re all professionals. I talked to a lot of people after it happened and he had a lot of things wrong with him. It was more than just my home run.”

Henderson was also asked to recount his other dramatic home run of the ’86 postseason, the World Series shot off Rick Aguilera of the New York Mets that moved the Red Sox as close to the world’s championship as they had been since 1918--only to be denied, as the Angels had been days earlier.

“I think ’86 left a real sour, bad taste in my mouth,” Henderson said. “I felt like we didn’t get beat in that Series--we gave it away. It was tough to spit that out during the winter.”

And he tasted it again last winter, after Oakland’s unexpected fall at the hands of the Dodgers.

“This year, I’m on a mission,” Henderson said. “I didn’t want to go down in history by going 0 for 3 in World Series.”

There are better ways to go down in history, as Henderson set about exploring Friday.

And the funny thing is, Henderson was saying, the ball that didn’t go out was the hardest hit of the lot.

“That’s the only ball I thought was out of the ballpark,” he said. “The other two were popped up. They’re easy outs in the (Oakland) Coliseum.”

Henderson was asked about this thing he has with the month of October, about why he seems to excel in the games that matter the most.

“I’m pretty good,” he deadpanned.

Then he thought about it.

“I think the postseason is kind of like the eighth and ninth innings in a regular-season game,” he said. “Usually in the ninth inning, with the game on the line, the hitter has the advantage. You just rely on scouting reports and what you know. The pitcher’s trying to hit a certain spot and you don’t have to defend all of the plate. It helps your chances.

“Everybody knows I’ve had good success in those innings. I think it translates into the postseason.”

By now, the A’s have begun to take such performances for granted.

“It’s in the book,” Oakland Manager Tony La Russa said. “The guy loves that situation, where there’s a game to win and he’s at the plate. This year I think he’s had more hits to send games into extra innings than anybody in baseball.”

La Russa doesn’t stop there, though. He remembers how Henderson stayed in the A’s lineup in April and May, while Jose Canseco and Mark McGwire succumbed to the disabled list, driving in important runs and stabilizing the Oakland offense.

“We really learned about Dave Henderson the first two months of the season,” La Russa said. “He went out there, sore and fatigued, when we were shorthanded and trying to grind it out. He kept going out there every day and doing it.”

Now, as Halloween approaches, he’s still doing it. But then, October has always been his month.