Before Manny Ramirez was “crawling on his hands and knees”, there stood a man in MLB above all others.

A man who spoke in the third person, a man who strutted around naked in the mirror, a man who told himself everyday that he was the greatest.

That man was Rickey Henderson.

And as the 2009 Hall of Fame Ballots came out, lo and behold, our good pal Rickey was on the list. And while Rickey is a “no-doubt” Hall of Fame baseball player, he is also a Hall of Fame human being.

The stories told about Henderson have reached epic proportions. They are a mix of Aesop Fables, Mother Goose nursery rhymes, and clubhouse gossip.

Here are the 10 Best Rickey Henderson stories. Mind you, most of these are hearsay but knowing Rickey like Rickey knows Rickey, they can’t be that far fetched.

10. During one off-season, Rickey Henderson called Padres general manager Kevin Towers and left the message “Kevin, this is Rickey. Calling on behalf of Rickey. Rickey wants to play baseball.

9. A Padres teammate once offered him a front seat on the team bus, saying that Henderson had tenure. Henderson replied, “Ten years? What are you talking about? Rickey got 16, 17 years.”

8. When asked about Ken Caminiti’s estimate that 50% of Major League baseball players were using steroids, Rickey replied…”“Well, Rickey’s not one of them, so that’s 49 percent right there.”

7. Supposedly, Rickey was pulled over by a San Diego police officer for speeding. As the officer was approaching Rickey’s car, the window rolled down a few inches and a folded $100 bill emerged. The officer let Rickey and his money head home without a ticket.

6. In 2002, Henderson had an argument with El Duque and stated, “He needs to grow up a little bit. I ain’t a kid. When I broke into the game, he was crawling on his hands and knees. Unless he’s as old as I am. He probably is.”

5. Rickey was asked if he had the Garth Brooks album with Friends in Low Places and Henderson said, “Rickey doesn’t have albums. Rickey has CDs.”

4. When he was on the Yankees in the mid-1980s, Henderson told teammates that his condo had such a great view that he could see, “The Entire State Building.”

3. While resting up sore muscles after a game, Rickey fell asleep on an icepack. Consequently he got frostbite and missed three games in Mid-August.

2. The story went that a few weeks into Henderson’s stint with the Mariners, he walked up to Olerud at the batting cage and asked him why he wore a batting helmet in the field. Olerud explained that he had an aneurysm at nine years old and he wore the helmet for protection. Legend goes that Henderson said, “Yeah, I used to play with a guy that had the same thing.” Legend also goes that Olerud said, “That was me, Rickey.”

Henderson played with Olerud on the Blue Jays and the Mets.

(Sadly, this story is indeed not true…however, its still hilarious)

1. In the early 1980s, the Oakland A’s accounting department was freaking out. The books were off $1 million. After an investigation, it was determined Rickey was the reason why. The GM asked him about a $1 million bonus he had received and Rickey said instead of cashing it, he framed it and hung it on a wall at his house.

Props to the old 100% IR blog for assisting me in finding these stories. You can now find him here