Rickey being Yogi

COOPERSTOWN, N.Y. – Yogi Berra closed his eyes for a few minutes Sunday. He is 84 now. He deserves an afternoon nap, even on stage at the Baseball Hall of Fame inductions. This was a legacy-passing ceremony, after all, Yogi finally able to rest knowing that the Hall found someone worthy of carrying on his endearing butchery of the English language.

Up to the podium stepped Rickey Nelson Henley Henderson, under a dank 2:43 p.m. ET sky, wearing a decade-old cream-colored suit with embroidered lapels, carrying not even a hundredth of the confidence that bathed him in an ethereal glow on the baseball field. Rickey, as he is wont to call himself, was nervous. Because the 21,000 people in front of him had grown to expect greatness from him, be it hitting, running, throwing and a subject at which he was decidedly less polished, orating.

Now, Henderson knows how to talk. He is an all-time talker, his mouth an improvisational instrument. Here, at baseball's hallowed grounds, Henderson scuttled the talk. He wanted to speak.

To the man who tricked him into playing baseball and the woman who bribed him to keep participating. To friends, present and past, who supported him. And to a mother who guided him.

“I guess mom do knows best,” Henderson said.

OK, so he's not an elocutionary Obama. That's fine. Henderson is taking Yogi's mantle for a reason.

Because he's a character, and sometimes a caricature, and always a superhero. The first line on Henderson's Hall of Fame plaque reads as such: "Faster than a speeding bullet." Had someone asked, surely Henderson would have worn a Superman T-shirt underneath his jersey and ripped it open to reveal an enormous "S" after setting one of his records. Henderson slid into home plate on a home run when he broke Ty Cobb's record for runs scored. He declared, after breaking Lou Brock's stolen-bases record, "I am the greatest."

Flair is woven into his DNA, and so it was odd to see Henderson paired on stage with the other 2009 inductee, Boston Red Sox outfielder Jim Rice, whose reticence with the media perhaps kept him from the requisite votes until his 15th and final ballot. Although disparate in personality, the two shared plenty: a position (left field), a distinction (comprising only the third class with multiple African-Americans chosen by the baseball writers) and a decision (whether even to play baseball).

“I did not like baseball,” Henderson admitted, and if not for the allure of sugar and money, he may well have spent his Hall of Fame weekends in Canton, Ohio.

Henderson loved football. His speed translated well at running back, so well that a local summer-league coach in Oakland, Calif., Hank Thomasson, resorted to chicanery to keep Henderson on the baseball field. He would swing by Henderson's house each morning with a glazed doughnut and a cup of hot chocolate, the smells of which lured Henderson outside, into the car and off to the ballpark.

Sweets didn't translate as well to a high school kid, so Tommie Wilkerson, a guidance counselor at Oakland Tech, tried another inducement: quarters. Every hit, run and stolen base Henderson tallied meant 25 cents.

"After my first 10 games," Henderson said, "I had 30 hits, 25 runs scored and 33 steals. Not bad money for a kid in high school."

Though nothing compared to what he'd make a few years later. Henderson zoomed through Oakland's minor league system. The A's enigmatic owner, Charlie O. Finley – of whom Henderson made mention Sunday, not forgetting Finley's eponymous donkey, Charlie-O – called Henderson personally to welcome him to the major leagues. Once there, Henderson earned more than $40 million, enough that he once framed a check for $1 million and placed it on a wall simply so he could admire it.

“He took us out the ghetto,” said Henderson's oldest brother, Alton. "He done give us everything. Cars, trucks, horses. We are just so proud."

That identity still courses through Henderson, even if he forsook it long ago. He recalled attending A's games growing up, waiting in the parking lot after the game, seeking out an autograph from his favorite player, Reggie Jackson, who instead would pass Henderson a pen with his name on it.

At the mention of his name, Jackson recoiled in his seat, for he knew what was coming. He ducked behind Robin Yount, did his best to hide. There was no use. Henderson seized the day's biggest laugh at the expense of his idol, and that was better than any signature.

For the past few weeks, Henderson honed his speech with students at a public-speaking course in the Bay Area. He didn't need any help. If anyone understands the key to a successful speech – an ever-present element of surprise – it's the man who frustrated more pitchers and catchers than anyone.

So as he wound down, Henderson talked about his idol, Muhammad Ali. Henderson told the world he was the greatest 18 years ago not necessarily because he believed it but because he always aspired to that ethos. He was the greatest leadoff hitter, the greatest base stealer, the greatest at taking a walk, the greatest at scoring a run. It was an exaggeration back then. Now, with 25 seasons under his belt, with the Hall of Fame welcoming him arms open, Henderson could say it one last time, and only a nitpicker would argue.

"My journey as a player is complete," Henderson said. "I am now in the class of the greatest players of all time. And at this moment, I am …

Everyone knew what was coming.

" … very, very humbled."

Huh?

"Yeah," said Henderson's wife, Pamela, "he got us."

Rickey Henderson spoke to everyone with that. Hall of Fame speeches generally are tinged with modesty, not capped with it. Rice earlier used his speech to talk about who he was. A husband. A father. A brother. An uncle. A grandfather. A friend.

"And finally, and I do mean finally," he said, "I am Jim Rice, called a Baseball Hall of Famer."

Rice spent so many years brutalized by oh-so-close votes, he didn't just savor this day. He owned it, every moment, like it was his and his alone. And Henderson, who so often filched others' limelight during his career, played a wildly different character Sunday: Rickey Henderson, not Rickey the mononym.

It was as if it finally occurred to Henderson, at 50, that he needed something to balance his legacy. He felt legitimate remorse at the anxiety that caused him to skip a page in his speech where he addressed his three daughters by name, and he got downright defensive about his propensity to talk in the third person.

“That is not the way I speak," Henderson said later, even though his pre-speech montage showed a clip of Rickey talking about Rickey.

On Sunday, there was none of that. Just 13 minutes, 52 seconds of a man revealing his palette of colors without having to reach for the gaudy fluorescents.

Long after the ceremony ended, Henderson finished posing for pictures and disappeared behind the stage. He looked around and spotted a table full of refreshments.

"I'm thirsty, man," Henderson said. "I need a soda."

He grabbed a can, popped it open, took a long slug and smiled. He wasn't nervous anymore. He was unburdened. The speech was over, and along with 64 other living Hall of Famers, this was his new second home, a place that needed 37 years to locate another Yogi.

Finding another Rickey – and another Rickey Henderson – may take even longer.