Rickey Takes It in Stride : Baseball: New all-time stolen-base king didn’t mind sharing the thunder on the day he broke Lou Brock’s record.

Baseball’s all-time stolen-base king Rickey Henderson once again is having the last laugh.

And it’s a slow, sardonic sort of laugh at that--”heh-heh-heh”--one that punctuates every sentence with the same dash of arrogance that the Oakland Athletics’ brash star uses to unnerve pitchers with each methodical, conniving, calculated fidget in a batter’s box.

Rickey Lee Henderson is not afraid to admire his own exploits, and he doesn’t particularly seem to care what others think about it when he does.

The conversation turns to The Day. And Nolan Ryan.

First, there’s the laugh. “Heh-heh-heh.”

Then, Henderson says he didn’t mind one bit--didn’t care that a few hours after he broke Lou Brock’s career steal record with swipe No. 939, Ryan pitched his seventh no-hitter for the Texas Rangers and stole top billing and all the adulation that would have had to come Henderson’s way, albeit begrudgingly.

“It didn’t bother me at all,” Henderson said here the other day, sitting in the A’s dugout at the Oakland-Alameda County Coliseum.

“It didn’t make no difference. I got my attention, and Nolan got his attention. No one stole my thunder. That couldn’t take away from what I did.

“I was here with my glory, and he was over there in Arlington (Tex.) with his.”

It was, however, a pundit’s dream.

Columnists across the country wrote of the intriguing juxtaposition: Henderson--with his gold chains and neon batting gloves and space-age, dark-tinted goggles and unashamedly boastful ways--stealing the record-breaking base, then uprooting the bag practically before the “safe” call was made and telling the crowd: “Today I am the greatest of all time.”

Then there was Ryan, the always-humble, farm-and-family man from Alvin, Tex.

He celebrated his moment with a boyish grin and a postgame session with an exercise bicycle.

He talked about spending the afternoon beforehand feeling all the aches that his 44 years could inflict upon him, and he was used as a symbol of dedication and perspective and dignity.

Ryan was given the most blaring headlines, and he was the top story in the newscasts.

And everyone assumed that Henderson was fuming.

After all, this is a player who spent spring training complaining that his $3 million salary left him underpaid, perhaps to the point where maximum effort was impossible.

It’s a person who calls the Porsche the A’s gave him for breaking Brock’s record “a nice summer car.”

What few people understand, Henderson contends, is that there is a Rickey Henderson the baseball player and a Rickey Henderson the showman.

And although the two seem inextricably interwoven when Henderson takes the field, he insists he knows the difference.

The glowing batting gloves, the shades, the stalling tactics, the taunts, the struts, the “snatch” catches in left field, the cocksure demeanor, the outrageous statements--those are the showman, Henderson says.

He gives the impression of being something like a comic-book hero, with an indestructible image to protect. “You have to believe in yourself, absolutely, or else no one will believe in you,” he said.

And, he insists, he can keep the antics from distracting or detracting from the baseball-playing side of things.

Indeed, Henderson’s productivity is beyond reproach: He has averaged 14 home runs, 78 stolen bases and 108 runs scored for his 12 major-league seasons, and that’s including an 89-game rookie year in 1979 and an injury-plagued, 95-game season in ’87.

For his 10 full seasons, the averages are 15 homers, 86 steals and 116 runs.

He has hit as many as 28 home runs and stolen as many as 130 bases in a season, with an RBI high of 74.

His career batting average is .293.

And he’s coming off what may have been his finest season--a .325, 28-homer, 65-steal campaign that earned him the 1990 AL Most Valuable Player award.

A’s Manager Tony La Russa calls Henderson the best leadoff hitter in history.

Baltimore Oriole Manager Frank Robinson has dubbed him the most disruptive force in the game.

Opposing pitchers loathe him. Said Oakland center fielder Dave Henderson: “I just love to sit back and watch Rickey play.”

Still, Rickey Henderson--like teammate Jose Canseco--is a player that fans generally love to hate.

Henderson knows it, and he relishes it.

“It’s good to be the center of attention,” he said. “If the people at the other teams’ ballparks like you, that’s when you know you’re in a lot of trouble.”

It’s a phenomenon that has troubled La Russa to a degree, with the manager saying Henderson’s irascible approach may prevent him from getting all the accolades due to him.

But “the bottom line is, Rickey is Rickey,” La Russa said. “You can’t try to make him be something that he’s not. The way he goes about playing the game is part of the reason he’s such a dominant player.”

La Russa scoffs at notions that the backlash against Henderson is racially motivated.

“I don’t think that’s a part of it,” he said.

“People dislike Rickey because he’s showy and, in his way, confrontational and a little bit cocky. It’s the same with Jose. It’s a personality and competitiveness thing, and nothing more.”