Rickey Henderson is on the Hall of Fame ballot for the first time and is an absolute lock on getting in, so in honor of him, I thought I’d present my three most favorite Rickey Henderson moments, trivia and minutia.
1) While in a contract dispute with the Oakland A’s regarding his $3 million salary, Rickey told reporters “they want to pay me like Mike Gallego, I’ll play LIKE Mike Gallego.”
2) For his entire career, before every game Rickey would stand naked in front of a mirror and say “Rickey’s the best,” multiple times.
3) The day after the Red Sox won the 2004 World Series with their awesome sweep of the Cardinals, Rickey called the Sox front office seeking tickets for game 6.
By the way, I can’t wait to see some bullshit BBWAA writer leave Rickey off his ballot because Ty Cobb wasn’t unanimous or some other lame ass reason. Then never reveal himself. I mean, is there any doubt that Rickey is a HoFer? After all, he was only the greatest lead-off hitter ever, the all-time leader in stolen bases (by 500!), the all-time leader in runs, 10th in runs created and 2nd in walks.
Rickey did it all. Now make Rickey a unanimous choice.
The Slanch Report 
My favorite Rickey story (if it is true, and God let’s hope it is) goes like this:
Rickey and John Olerud were teammates with the Blue Jays for a brief time in 1993. Olerud as you know wore a helmet in the field due to a prior brain hemorrhage. In 1999 Rickey joined the Mets and was once again teammates with Olerud. On the first day of Spring Training, Henderson approached Olerud to say it was strange he wore a helmet in the field, he used to play with a guy who did that.
Olerud’s reply, “Yeah Rickey, that was me.”
There’s also an urban legend about Rickey framing a check worth a million dollars without cashing it, but I can’t remember all the details. Let’s just say that Rickey Henderson stories, real or fake, are better than anyone else.
And that’s the Rickey Henderson bit!
Unfortunately both Rickey and Olerud said that story is untrue, although they both also said they wished it were…
also, the check story is totally true, and apparently freaked the A’s accounting department out because they couldn’t figure out why they were up $1M when they shouldn’t be, until they approached Rickey and he told them he had framed the check.