Oakland commemorated “Rickey Henderson Bobblehead Day” yesterday by giving away 20,000 Rickey figurines to paying customers, and unlike the original design above, Henderson tells the Contra-Costa Times’ Carl Stewart he supervised some last-minute changes.
“I’ve seen a lot of bobbleheads, and they all seem by their uniforms like they haven’t been playing the game,” Henderson said. “So I told them to put a little dirt on mine to make sure it looked like I was playing.”
Henderson said his mother, Bobbie, would never allow a clean bobblehead into her house.
“If I bring that bobblehead home to my mom, she’ll go, ‘Take that back because you ain’t dirty,’ ” he said.
Rickey is depicted holding the base he swiped on May 1, 1991 when he passed Lou Brock as baseball’s all-time stolen base king, an occasion marked by customary Henderson humility and grace. Given the poor attendances at Citi Field this season, the Mets would do well to consider a series of Rickey bobbleheads (Henderson with a helmet-donning John Olerud, Henderson and Bobby Bonilla shown playing cards) that would undoubtedly cause a panic at the box office and eBay alike.