Spring Training, Like It's 1977

By David Pritchard
Posted Wednesday, March 14, 2007

(PORT ORANGE, Fla.) – A few days or weeks ago, it’s been lost on me, the Mets resuscitated yet another surprise antiquation in their attempts to find their way starting off a season that seems to be providing few concrete answers. In the ilk of Orlando Hernandez, I could be referring to Reagan-era phenom Ruben Sierra, or even the oddity that is the signing of Sandy Alomar Jr. But it’s Rickey Henderson’s reunion with the Mets as an assistant coach for spring training that can remind anyone that “moving and shaking” in baseball is more than paper and statistics. Nostalgia and deep relationships of yesteryear still bandy their power in a place like Flushing.

I arrived in Viera, Florida, where the Mets and Nats were to square off Monday afternoon, long before the box office opens. Unlike the seasoned autograph fiends around me at the players’ entrance, I was looking for some inside clue from anyone privy to Willie Randolph’s mind about the outlook of the epic battle for pitching rotation worthiness being raged in this state this month. The pen-wielding bounty hunters around me knew as much as I, which was very little of substance. I was also accompanied by an old black fellow leaning on a tree, a total contrast to all the others with his wide sunglasses and loose Caribbean shirt.

Within the hour, the Mets bus pulled up, and the assemblage of souvenir seekers start to scurry like an upset Florida ant hill. Several players stop to sign - the likes of David Wright in his true Southern gentlemanliness, and Lastings Milledge, joyless and hidden behind Gucci sunglasses. No one could or would address my questions if I didn’t have a pen. If I could get a word from Randolph…

Suddenly a murmur surges through all present.

“Rickey!” “You gotta be kidding me. Is that Rickey Henderson?”
“Would you sign, Rickey?

I had forgotten how I used to admire the level of fitness in which Mr. Henderson kept himself when he played for the Mets; he still filled out the black muscle shirt he wore, and his triceps were still crushing. I had forgotten because that was eight years ago. But this is not 1999. “Rickey” will be 50 before we have our next president. He walked alongside Mr. Randolph, who is only four years his senior, chatting like the old veteran teammates they are. Though Henderson’s involvement with the Mets had been announced a few days erstwhile, he had yet to ever arrive at camp, said a source close to the team this spring. It was not even clear as he stepped off the bus whether he was here in an exclusively coaching role, or if we might even expect to see him on the base paths a few times before all was said and done. (After all, he is five months younger than Julio Franco… and looks closer to five years.)

Not everybody was thrilled to see Mr. Henderson, as is statistically inevitable when you gather more than two New Yorkers together in any one place. “Hey, it’s Mr. Prima Donna himself,” said one fan after Henderson walked on.

But you couldn’t help shaking the notion that, better or worse, few people can enter a building with such star power as Rickey Henderson can anywhere in New York. He is, to be sure, brash and arrogant, a magnet for (distracting) attention. But with no fewer than seven rookie invitees competing for 2 open non-pitching positions, it’s a catalyst that may have a calculated pay off in Raldolph’s mind. As if to emulate Luther Vandross, Rickey struts past sporting ‘70’s throw-back pleated slacks and a jacket over his shoulder; he was also apparently competing with Milledge in the Gaudy Sunglass Festival before the game.

“You don’t look a day over 25, Rickey.”
“Hey, damn, thanks.”

Randolph and Henderson did not stroll directly inside. They first directed their attention to the old gentleman I had noticed against the tree before. Without cards or jerseys to sign, the three of them laughed and chatted as if they had all grown up in the same apartment building. Randolph and Henderson walked on past the stunned lot of us. The old man was Winston Palmer, chief electrician at Yankee Stadium from 1977 until 2000. He mused to me about personally knowing the old greats: Guidry, Gossage, Reggie Jackson. I half expected any or all of them to step off the bus at any moment and report for player duties.

Not since Tammany Hall has the power of “old men” been wielded in New York in such unorthodox ways. Sandy Alomar Sr. (Randolph’s teammate on the pennant-winning 1976 Yankees) silently stands in the coaches box, and his son straps on catcher’s equipment in the bullpen at the age of 41. Ruben Sierra, also 41, pinch hit yesterday in the 8th. He struck out. ”Why don’t we bring back Strawberry for the outfield?” suggested someone in the stands behind me. “Or Doc Gooden?”

Considering what might happen during the season, with a pitching staff only slightly more solid than the Democratic majority in the Senate, I would be a fool to put anything past Randolph’s Mets. Those sound like half-plausible suggestions, actually.

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