STEALING TIME.(Rickey Henderson)

One summer night not long ago, Rickey Henderson, the greatest base stealer and lead-off hitter in baseball history, stood in a dugout, pinching the front of his jersey and plucking it several inches from his chest--"peacocking," as some players call it. He went through the same pregame rituals that he has performed since he was a rookie outfielder with the Oakland A's, in 1979. He sorted through a bunch of bats, asking, "Which one of you bad motherfuckers has got a hit in you?" Picking one up with resin on the handle, he cocked it back, waiting for an imaginary pitch, and talked to himself in the third person, the words running together so fast that they were nearly unintelligible: "Let's-burn-Rickey-come-on-let's-burn."

Henderson is accustomed not only to beating his opponents but also to lording his abilities over them. As a ten-time All Star for the A's, the New York Yankees, and seven other teams, he stole more than fourteen hundred bases--a record that is considered untouchable, like Joe DiMaggio's fifty-six-game hitting streak. He scored more runs than Ty Cobb, Babe Ruth, or Hank Aaron. Bill James, the oracle of baseball statistics, wrote, "Without exaggerating one inch, you could find fifty Hall of Famers who, all taken together, don't own as many records." Or, as Henderson puts it, "I'm a walking record."

As Henderson stepped onto the field, he stopped abruptly. A foul odor was seeping from under the dugout. "Where's it coming from?" one of his teammates asked. Several players bent down, trying to find the source of the smell; previously, the manager had found a dead rat in the stadium.

"I think it's coming from over here," one player said. "See that hole?"

Henderson tried to ignore the commotion and resume his routine. He walked toward the batter's box, moving casually, as if he were out for an evening stroll. An opposing player once noted that it took him longer to get to the batter's box than to drive to the stadium. Henderson has said that his slow approach is a way to get into a pitcher's head; opponents have said that it is simply another means for Henderson to let the world take stock of him. As he reached the batter's box, informing the world what Rickey was going to do to the ball, he again seemed disconcerted, and looked up at the crowd: there were only six hundred or so fans in the stadium, and many of the women had dressed up, as part of a promotional Eighties Night, in sequins and lace stockings, like Madonna in her "Like a Virgin" phase.

Earlier, Henderson had confessed to me, "Last night, I dropped down on my knees and I asked God, 'Why are you doing this to Rickey? Why did you put me here?' "

An announcer called his name on the scratchy P.A. system: "Now batting lead-off for the San Diego Surf Dawgs . . . RICKEY HENDERSON."