The Sunday Funnies

Rickey Henderson was born on Christmas, which is why I post a Rickey Henderson story for the Sunday Funnies that week. And there are a lot of Rickey Henderson stories, some true, some not (but all of them plausible).

This year's:

Henderson once fell asleep on an ice pack and got frostbite, which forced him to miss three games — in mid-August.

The Sunday Funnies

Every year for Christmas Week I post a Rickey Henderson story, since Rickey was born on Christmas.

And some year I'm going to run out.

World Series, 2004. The day after the Boston Red Sox win Game 4 to complete the sweep of the St. Louis Cardinals, Rickey calls the Red Sox front office. He wants tickets to Game Six.

The Sunday Funnies

Merry Christmas ... and Happy Birthday to the great Rickey Henderson, a staple figure in these stories.

In the last week of his lone season with the Red Sox, Chairman 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.”

The Sox got Henderson a Red Thunderbird and when he saw it on the field before the last game of the season, Rickey said, “Whose ugly car is on the field?”

The Sunday Funnies

It's a couple days after Christmas, and Rickey Henderson was born on Christmas, so it's time to unwrap a Rickey Henderson story.

When he was on the Yankees in the mid-1980s, Henderson told teammates that his condo had such a great view that he could see “The Entire State Building.”

The Sunday Funnies

Rickey Henderson, the subject of perhaps more funny stories than anybody since Dizzy Dean, was born on Christmas. Since this is Christmas week, a Rickey story...

The Mets were staying in a hotel less than a mile from Cinergy Field in Cincinnati. While some players walked to the stadium, most took the team bus. A few minutes after they arrived — again it was less than a mile – the last players off the bus noticed a stretched limo that had just pulled up.

Of course, Rickey emerged from the back seat.

The Sunday Funnies

A reporter asked Rickey Henderson about Ken Caminiti's claim that 50 percent of major leaguers were using steroids.

Henderson replied, "Well, Rickey isn't one of them, so that's 49 percent right there."

The Sunday Funnies

Star players frequently check into team hotels under aliases, the better to avoid fans, media, prank callers, etc.

One day Kevin Towers, then the San Diego general manager, needed to call Rickey Henderson. He knew Rickey used an alias on the road, but he didn't know what it was on this particular trip. So he tried to think like Rickey, and after a couple of misses, Towers figured it out.

Rickey had checked in as Richard Pryor.

The Sunday Funnies

We opened this regular offseason Sunday feature with Rickey Henderson; we'll close it with Rickey too. Specifically, Rickey and money.

Henderson's on his first go-round with the A's, and he earns a nice $1 million bonus, which the A's send him in January. The months pass, and at the end of the year the A's are doing their year-end audit, and find a $1 million descrepancy.

$1 million. Rickey. You don't suppose ...

A front office functionary gives Henderson a call. Did you get that $1 million bonus check back in January? Yep, Rickey did. Well, did you cash it?


Nope, Rickey didn't. He framed it. It was hanging on his wall, so that everyday he'd see it and know he's a millionaire.

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The years pass. Rickey's now with the Yankees, and he gets another bonus check, something in six figures, and with the fullness of time it becomes the Yankees turn to find in their year-end audit that there is a descrepancy matching Henderson's bonus check.

A front office functionary (supposedly Brian Cashman, now the Yankees general manager) gives Henderson a call. Did you get that bonus check back in January? Yep, Rickey did. Well, did you cash it?


Nope. Rickey's waiting for the money market rates to go up.

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More years pass. Rickey is on another go-around with Oakland. Teammate Jason Giambi reaches a multi-year deal with the A's, and he and some of the other players are talking in the clubhouse about what kind of car Giambi's going to buy.

Henderson gets up from his corner of the clubhouse and hands Giambi a copy of the Wall Street Journal. The others start razzing him about investing.

"You can say what you want to," Henderson retorts, "but Rickey ain't never going broke."

The Sunday Funnies

It's 2000. Rickey Henderson approaches his Seattle teammate John Olerud with a question: Why do you wear a batting helmet in the field?

Olerud explains that he had a brain aneurysm while in college and wears the helmet to protect the place in his skull where the surgeons went in to repair it.

"That's cool," Henderson says. "I had a teammate last year with the Mets who did the same thing."

"Yeah," Olerud replies. "That was me."

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For the record, Olerud has said that conversation never occurred. He also said it's a plausible story because it's Rickey Henderson.

The Sunday Funnies

Merry Christmas. And Happy Birthday to Rickey Henderson, too.

In Rickey's honor:

Henderson is in spring training with the San Diego Padres late in his career, and he's getting on the bus for their first road game of the exhibition season.

Uncertain of the protocol on his new team, and not wanting to disrupt any veteran's accustomed preferences, he ask, "Where do I sit?"

Fellow veteran outfielder Steve Finley replies: "Sit anywhere you want, Rickey, you've got tenure."

Henderson gives Finley a puzzled look. "Tenure? Rickey got 16, 17 year."

The Sunday Funnies

As I said last week, I'm launching today an offseason Sunday theme: The Sunday Funnies, amusing baseball stories, some of which may actually be true. I'm less concerned with accuracy than the story, frankly.

One could probably do a winter's worth of these posts just with Rickey Henderson stories. I'm going to limit myself to one a month, but Rickey will lead off here, just as he did in real life.

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Henderson is playing for future major league manager Tom Trebelhorn in the lower rungs of the A's farm system, and  the manager sits down with the young outfielder to explain what they want from him. You're going to run on your own, Trebelhorn tells Henderson. We want you to learn to steal bases, and you're going to learn faster if I'm not telling you when to go. So I won't be giving you signals.


A few days later Henderson comes back to Treblehorn. Man, you're giving everybody else signals, you're not giving me signals, I feel left out. Trebelhorn again explains why he's not giving Henderson signals, but Rickey's adamant -- I want to be treated like everyone else. Give me signals.

So Trebelhorn goes through his signs. This is the steal, this is the bunt, this is the hit-and-run, this is the squeeze -- and if I wipe the letters on my shirt, that's the take-off sign. It takes off whatever play I just called. Got it? Got it.

Game starts. Henderson gets on base. Treblehorn, coaching at third because that's what minor league managers do, gives Henderson the steal sign, followed by the takeoff sign -- he wants to teach the kid a lesson by depriving him of steal opportunities -- and Henderson promptly steals second.

Treblehorn gives Rickey every sign -- steal, hit and run, bunt, even the suicide squeeze -- and follows each with the takeoff sign. Henderson steals third on the next pitch.

Treblehorn puts his arm around Henderson as the runner dusts himself off. Rickey, that was beautiful, that's exactly the way we want you to steal bases -- but didn't you see me give the takeoff sign?

"Sure," says Henderson, "and I took off for second, and I took off for third."