Athletics Starting Without Rickey : Baseball: Henderson’s holdout is not helping Oakland as it tries to regroup after World Series flop.

The Oakland Athletics begin this season with their World Series defeat last year haunting them like some evil spirit. You walk into the clubhouse and expect to hear chains rattling, or maybe the babblings of Rob Dibble echoing off the corridors. It still is perplexing to think the team that won 306 games over three years, including 103 last season, couldn’t manage one victory against Cincinnati.

“My only fear is feeling the way I did after last season,” Manager Tony LaRussa said, “like we didn’t take our best shot. That keeps me up at night.”

In the opening days of his quest to purge that feeling, LaRussa has found himself confronted with another spectre: the ghost of Rickey Henderson, which happens to be the only sign of Henderson around here these days.

Henderson has refused to report to work, apparently because he is upset that his four-year, $12-million contract is outdated. Its average annual value has been exceeded by 35 players since he signed it a little more than a year ago.

Several club officials, including LaRussa, have left messages for Henderson. He has returned none of them. The team has no idea where he is or when he might show up. The game’s premier leadoff hitter has Oakland off to a lousy start.

“For his sake, he is making a statement,” LaRussa said. “But the team needs him here with us.”

The other day, when Jose Canseco arrived more than an hour late for the first workout, Reggie Jackson, who is working as a coach here, saw himself in the young slugger and didn’t like the reflection.

“I didn’t know I was such a jerk,” Jackson said. “I was late every year until I got a multiyear contract.”

Another day without Henderson pushed LaRussa closer to anger.

“There is a point for that,” he said. “It’s not now.”

Irritation came first.

“To me, when people think of Rickey it has almost nothing to do with money,” LaRussa said. “If this game was only about how much money you make, why would anybody show up? He is the MVP and the greatest leadoff hitter in history. If he could understand that’s more important, and the way his peers and his teammates think about him, he’d be better off.

“The best player isn’t always the best paid. It stands to make sense that would happen. But it doesn’t. Not in this market, when things are changing all the time.”

By definition of the Basic Agreement, Henderson is not late. Players are not required to report this year until Wednesday. But by every other definition, he is indeed late.

“I don’t let owners, an executive board or the Players Association set my policy,” LaRussa said. “What’s March 6? It’s a date they agreed to. So what. It doesn’t mean anything to me. What matters to me is my team and Rickey is a part of it. We do need him here.”

LaRussa has five players on his club earning at least $3 million a year. The team payroll probably will exceed $35 million. As a general rule, egos grow in approximate proportion to the size of the paycheck. And so do the chances for distraction, such as players speeding at 104 mph and thinking it’s funny or refusing to show up at camp.

“Every year,” LaRussa said, “things become more like Fantasy Island. I mean, it gets harder for guys to get a grip on what’s real and what’s not. It gets hard to believe.

“You hope that guys keep it simple, that they are able to simplify what’s important and real. Like, ‘If I work hard, I’ll do good.’ If not, they can become real, real warped.”

LaRussa has hinted that his team succumbed to such delusion last season, that it lost its focus amid all the expectations of greatness. The World Series defeat left the Athletics with an emptiness from three years of otherwise stellar achievement.

“I don’t think you can be considered a great team by losing the World Series,” shortstop Walt Weiss said. “Look at the Denver Broncos. They’re not considered a great team for losing all those Super Bowls. You’ve got to win it all. We know that. The Yankees (of the late ‘70s) were the last great team. We thought we would be next. It hasn’t happened.”

LaRussa said he looks at the three-year run this way: “There’s a lot of good there. But there’s one big, noticeable turd there, one smelly dropping. You can’t miss it.”

LaRussa plans to show the players motivational videotapes from famous people, though he wouldn’t name them. “Some of them may show up personally,” he said. He is a man endlessly in search of an edge. But keeping a team together these days may be beyond even the shrewdest manager.

Thanks to Henderson, Oakland’s effort to recover from last October is lacking. His absence is a reminder that Henderson, at his worst, can be as distracting and destructive to his own club as he usually is to the enemy.