Next stop: the hall of fame: Rickey Henderson's numbers have cooperstown waiting.(Interview)

NOBODY STARTED A RICKEY Henderson watch. While all eyes appeared to be on Barry Bonds approaching the single-season home run record in the final weeks of the 2001 campaign, the Padres' Rickey Henderson was sneaking up on a couple of records himself.

At 42, Henderson surpassed Ty Cobb as the all-time record holder for runs scored--and on October 7, he became the 25th major league player to reach 3,000 hits when he double off Colorado's John Thomson. Already rated as one of baseball's best leadoff hitters, if not the best, Henderson holds the big-league record for walks at 2,141. His major league records also include 1,395 stolen bases and 79 first-inning leadoff home runs.

Henderson sat in the San Diego Padres dugout at Coors Field late last September and quietly talked about one of baseball's most productive careers. He has 23 seasons to talk about, and he plans to play one more for whatever team will have him.

"The runs scored record that I achieved, to me is one of the key records," Henderson said. "I feel deep inside it's a team record. The only way you can score that many runs is with a lot of help from your team.

"It means a lot to me," Henderson said of passing Cobb's runs record. "I don't really hear his name a lot and the mention of all the great things he did for baseball. He had to go out and bang on his body, just as I have banged on my body to try to score runs and help our teams win ball-games. We're not noticed as much for that type of work like the big home run and RBI guys are."

There's more to Henderson's baseball than just scoring runs and stealing bases.

"I play the game hard," he said. "As a leadoff hitter, my job is to get on the base paths, create stuff and score runs. And steal a few bases in between."