Marchman on Rickey is well worth reading.

Story #13 almost made me pass out.

Who knows it Rickey as hitting coach will work, but I can't believe it's taken this long for someone to try him. I mean, he's nuts, but damn, did he know hitting.

If what they say about his tutoring of Reyes is even half true, he should be a very valuable addition to the team.

SOOooO awesome

This is actually a very old piece.
It has been rehashed on the net for a few years.

number 25 is still my favorite ..
Tom Werner asked Henderson what he would like for his ‘going-away’ gift. Henderson said he wasn’t going anywhere, but he would like owner John Henry’s Mercedes. Werner said it would be tough to get the same make and model in less than a week and Henderson said,

“No, I want his car.”

I thought Tony Gwynn was the one who told Rickey he had tenure.

What this makes this even more entertaining for me was that my Mom was cleaning out her attic the other day and found an essay I wrote in 1982, when I was 10 years old, about why Rickey Henderson was my personal hero.

Let me tell you, if I'd known that Rickey stood naked in front of a full length mirror before every game chanting "Rickey's the Best" I would have worked it into that essay somehow.

What Bill James said.

Let me tell you, if I'd known that Rickey stood naked in front of a full length mirror before every game chanting "Rickey's the Best"

Well, I guess he's never used steroids.

Best Regards

John

If even half of these are true, it's still a great list. But as to this one:

8) Moments after breaking Lou Brock’s stolen base record, Henderson told the crowd – with Brock mere feet next to him – "Lou Brock was a great base stealer, but today, I am the greatest of all-time."

As I recall, Rickey actually cleared this with Brock beforehand. Actually, here's an interview where Rickey discusses this.

Muhammad Ali was my idol, and in one of his phrases he said, `I'm the greatest.' So I said, `If I ever break the record, I just want to say, `I'm the greatest,' out of respect for Muhammad Ali. It had nothing to do with baseball, nothing to do with stolen bases.

Lou Brock had no problem with it. In fact, he helped me write what I was going to say that day. He stayed with me for a week leading up to the record, and we went over everything.

People forget that the `greatest' line was at the end of my remarks. I talked about Lou, but that's all anybody remembers. As soon as I said it, it ruined everything. Everybody thought it was the worst thing you could ever say. Those words haunt me to this day, and will continue to haunt me. They overshadow what I've accomplished in this game.

Wait, there's even better stuff from that interview.

Q: Hobbies?

A: Fishing, working on the ranch.

Q: Rickey Henderson has a ranch?

A: Close to Yosemite Park in California. Believe it or not, I'm a ranch-type guy. I like to get out and do the regular work, getting dirty with the dust and everything. People that see me say, `I can't believe that's Rickey Henderson out there.'

Q: What's on the ranch?

A: Cows, horses, pigs.

Q: Do you slop with the pigs?

A: I get in with all of them. I have chickens, too. I've cut my feet chasing some of those doggone chickens. . . .

Q: How do you deal with the heckling?

A: I try to make it a positive--at least they're acknowledging you. They know who you are. I try to get them to laugh. Shoot, I'm a fan. When I go to Oakland for a football game, and they're not doing what I want, I'm yelling and screaming the same way. Some of the wives say, `Rickey, why are you yelling at my husband like that?' And I say, `They yell at me the same way.' But I love them, anyway.

Q: Strangest thing you've ever witnessed on a baseball field?

A: Guy comes on the field in Oakland, straight-buck-naked. Stops in center and starts doing some weird stuff. Way-out-there weird. . . .

Q: If you played every day next year, how many bases could you steal?

A: If the manager lets me go? Seventy-five to 100.

Q: Are you serious? You know you'll turn 44 in December?

A: All the better. Seventy-five to 100 bags, at 44. Sounds cocky, doesn't it? But I know I could do it.

Q: What do fans most misunderstand about players?

A: They don't always realize how much we really want to win for them, and that we're not trying to make mistakes. Sometimes you get fans who ride you too hard, take it too far. But if he's in his office making mistakes, does he want people standing over him riding him all day? I doubt it.

Rickey! should come work with the pricks in my office.

Wow, I never knew that about the Ali thing. It seems like another situation where good is ridiculed because people are too dumb to recognize it for good.

I also am overjoyed that people around here can enjoy Henderson without poking fun at his intelligence. In many ways he seems like a genius--different style of thinking, great at what he does, uninterested in putting in work to conform.

I'm not surprised that this is accepted here, but I am thankful.

In all the ways that matter to him, Rickey is a genius.

can someone pretty please email me the list. china blocks anything on blogspot, and i love ricky.

During a contract holdout with Oakland in the early 1990s, Henderson said, “If they want to pay me like Mike Gallego, I’ll play like Gallego.”

Words to live by.

10) A reporter asked Henderson if Ken Caminiti’s estimate that 50 percent of Major League players were taking steroids was accurate. His response was, “Well, Rickey’s not one of them, so that’s 49 percent right there.”

Yogi Berra was a fairly successful major league manager. (Two of his teams went to the World Series in 7 years as a skipper.) I think of Rickey Henderson as a latter day Yogi. His language is not exactly standard English, but there is some kind of genius buried in there. I'd love to see Rickey managing a ballclub. Maybe when Joe Torre retires?

During a contract holdout with Oakland in the early 1990s, Henderson said, “If they want to pay me like Mike Gallego, I’ll play like Gallego.”

Words to live by.

The real fun thing about this is that when Rickey! said it, Gallego was having a better season. I think it happened in May or early June when Gallego was having his career 2 month stretch and Rickey! was scuffling.

Q: Strangest thing you've ever witnessed on a baseball field?

A: Guy comes on the field in Oakland, straight-buck-naked. Stops in center and starts doing some weird stuff. Way-out-there weird. . . .

He was chanting "Rickey's the best!"

How much credit should Rickey get for Jose Reyes's development?

I don't know how many people are aware of this - I wasn't - but Reyes is on pace to walk nearly 90 times this year, which is absolutely astonishing.

Marchman sums it up: "While all of this is great for the Mets, though, best of all is that the game is simply brighter, more joyous, and more tightly anchored to the best of its past with Rickey in it."

Pearlman: Rickey on Rickey

RICKEY: Rickey wants a raise. Rickey needs to be highest paid, or Rickey's not playing.

WILPON: Rickey, you're our hitting coach.

RICKEY: Does Rickey know you?

WILPON: I own the Mets. We just spoke ... twice.

HORWITZ: With us today is Jose Reyes, the Mets All-Star shortstop. Jose leads the league in stolen bases, and is very excited to have Rickey ...

RICKEY (turning to Reyes): Does Rickey know you?

REYES: Of course. We ...

RICKEY: This spring Rickey instructed someone who looked just like you.

REYES: That was me.

RICKEY: No. Rickey remembers. Guy spoke Spanish to Rickey.

REYES: Si, hablo Espanol. Me llamo Jose Reyes. Somos amigos.

RICKEY: Rickey doesn't understand what you're saying to Rickey.

My Rickey story, which I've posted before here (I think) but seems worth repeating in this context:

I was at the Ritz-Carlton in Pasadena a few years back, when Ricky was playing for the Dodgers. While I was out front waiting for my car, a Dodger-blue Escalade rolls up, all tricked out in chrome. Out bounces Rickey, clad from head-to-toe in Dodger blue, including a blue forearm cast. The valet opens the passenger door to reveal a tall, beautiful woman, dressed in a white linen pants suit with a Dodger-blue belt and accessories. Two cute little kids then tumble out of the backseat, likwise outfitted in the colors of the home team.

I love that the dude apparently felt such loyalty to a team that gave him less than 1% of his career ABs, and I like to think that the used-car lots and thrift shops of Oakland, New York, Anaheim, Seattle, Toronto, Boston, and San Diego contain appropriately colored versions of Rickey's duds and rides.

Okay, what's the over/under on how many of those stories are true? How many have been verified? Let's get the Snopes people in on this.

RICKEY: Rickey wants a raise. Rickey needs to be highest paid, or Rickey's not playing.

Alex, you and Jeff Pearlman have one thing in common. His fake dialog wasn't funny, either.

4) In 1996, Henderson’s first season with San Diego, he boarded the team bus and was looking for a seat. Steve Finley said, “You have tenure, sit wherever you want.” Henderson looked at Finley and said, “Ten years? Ricky’s been playing at least 16, 17 years.”

Reminds me of Weird Al Yankovic's anedcote about the time he, James Brown and Little Richard appeared on WHEEL OF FORTUNE: James had never even seen the show before, and so during the rehearsal game he spun the wheel and asked for an "A."

"Sorry, James," Pat Sajak said, "but 'A' is a vowel. We need a consonant."

The Godfather of Soul thought hard for a moment, and then (according to Weird Al) said, "Okay... Europe!"

According to MLB.com, HoJo's the hitting coach, and Rickey!!!'s the 1st base coach.

"I wanted to be a coach, it's my dream outside of playing baseball," Henderson said. "I can bring excitement. I can bring a winning feeling."
...

"I ain't going home in October," said Henderson, who intends to have an effect on how the Mets get to October. "We're gonna run there."

I have such a a man-crush on Rickey.

He's the 20th century's greatest scam, half a boy, half a man.

Alex, you and Jeff Pearlman have one thing in common. His fake dialog wasn't funny, either.

"His" dialogue was Pearlman's dialogue.

And I agree, it was really lame.

The real fun thing about this is that when Rickey! said it, Gallego was having a better season. I think it happened in May or early June when Gallego was having his career 2 month stretch and Rickey! was scuffling.

He said it in spring training.