Not so golden oldies

Rickey Henderson is a certain Hall of Famer. It’s a lock that the greatest leadoff hitter in baseball history will be elected to Cooperstown on the first ballot. All he has to do is retire and wait the required five years.

Here’s where it gets sticky for Rickey.

At 44, an age when most athletes who are not professional golfers have turned into golfing, ex-professional athletes, Henderson refuses to quit. After getting cut by the Boston Red Sox last year, he started the season with the Newark Bears, an independent minor league team. He finally signed with the Los Angeles Dodgers last month. But until then, Rickey’s daily routine included commuting to New Jersey from his Manhattan apartment and fielding this question: Why?

Why, Rickey, why? Your legacy, your greatness has been established. The stolen base and runs scored records, the lead-off homers, the 3,000-plus hits, the way you could single-handedly change the course of a game simply by being Rickey — why tarnish all that? Isn’t this beneath you — playing in the low minors before crowds numbering in the hundreds, dressing alongside the has-beens and never-will-bes? Even if you get to skip riding the team bus, you still have to park the SUV and play games in Camden, N.J., or Bridgeport, Conn.

Sure, you were named MVP of the All-Star Game. But the Atlantic League All-Star Game?

Why, Rickey, why?

His answer, or the gist of it, is always the same.

“As long as I feel good and the good Lord give me a chance to play and the desire to go out and compete, then I’ll continue playing,” he said before a game in July.

“You look at the [small] crowd. But it’s still the same game. It’s the same fun. It’s based on how you approach it. Some guys that have been in the big leagues come here and they don’t approach it like having fun and thinking they are still doing the things you enjoy and love to do, and they get frustrated by it. I come down here and put in perspective that I am having fun. This is something I love to do. It doesn’t matter where I am.”

Wanting to play is one thing but having the ability to play is something else entirely. Henderson was hitting .220 without a stolen base (through Tuesday) for the Dodgers. But others have looked even worse.

The sights of Joe Namath in Los Angeles Rams’ blue and gold and John Unitas wearing San Diego Chargers lightning bolts on his helmet, both nearly crippled, linger as tawdry memories. Veteran New York Mets fans are still torn over whether getting to see an aging Willie Mays playing for the home team was worth having to endure watching him falling down in center field and struggling at the plate.

Too many athletes would not or could not know when to say when: Babe Ruth, a 40-year-old caricature of himself, batting .181 for the Boston Braves despite hitting three home runs in a game. Mickey Mantle hanging on with the New York Yankees and batting .255, .245 and .237 in three of his final four seasons, falling below .300 for his career. Home run king Hank Aaron returning to his Milwaukee roots and playing two abysmal seasons with the Brewers, another homecoming gone awry. Franco Harris in a Seattle Seahawks uniform, averaging 2.5 yards a carry.

Jim Thorpe, who was voted the greatest athlete of the first half of the 20th century, could run fast and far, but he could not walk away. After playing long past when he should have stopped, he finally retired from the NFL. But then he came back for one game with the Chicago Bears. This is how it went: “Jim Thorpe played a few minutes but was unable to get anywhere,” a reporter wrote. “In his 40s and muscle-bound, Thorpe was a mere shadow of his former self.”

For every Rocky Marciano or Jim Brown or Barry Sanders who quit while on top there are a dozen who hung around too long, trying to squeeze out another year or two. Did anyone enjoy seeing the vague replicas of Ernie Banks (.193), Mike Schmidt (.203) or Willie McCovey (.204) in their final seasons? Before calling it quits in 1988, Steve Carlton gave up 18 runs in 9⅔ innings. But it never should have come to that. He was 9-14 and 6-14, with ERAs of 5.10 and 5.74, for five different teams in ’86 and ’87.

Six years after he retired from the Boston Celtics, complete with a tearful ceremony, Bob Cousy came back to play seven games at 41 with the Cincinnati Royals, the team he was coaching. He was terrible, and many Celtics fans still haven’t forgiven him. “I did it for the money,” Cousy later admitted.

When he played for the New York Knicks, Patrick Ewing once won (or lost) an ESPN poll on which athlete should immediately retire. The merits of Michael Jordan’s second comeback, with the Wizards, likely will remain a topic of debate.

Washed-up boxers have their own club. From Jim Jeffries coming out of a long retirement to be humiliated by Jack Johnson, to Jack Dempsey to Joe Louis to the Sugar Rays, Robinson and Leonard, to, of course, Muhammad Ali, who suffered permanent damage. It seems that anyone who ever laced on the gloves has tried to defy time and collect one more paycheck. Sometimes it works out. After all, people do win the lottery. George Foreman was able to fool them. Now it’s Evander Holyfield trying to fool himself.

Unlike athletes who compete in team sports and are subjected to salary caps and the whims of owners and general managers, boxers almost always act alone. Absent a waiver wire, they are on their own, and there always seems to be a promoter willing to offer a purse to a faded legend. When Larry Holmes was asked why it was so hard to retire, he replied, “I like the game, the competition, the challenge.” But in another interview he said, “Because people keep offering me money.”

A savvy businessman, Holmes seems to be in the minority among boxers. Mike Tyson isn’t the only fighter to lose it all (although he is the first to blow through $400million); others have squandered their resources, or had it squandered for them. Louis, the heavyweight champ during the 1930s and ’40s, had to keep fighting (and even tried pro wrestling) after running afoul of the IRS. Robinson, whose extravagant lifestyle rivaled that of any current athlete with his and her Escalades, went broke. In 1965, at 44, he fought five times in 36 days.

Money, especially in these salary-inflated times, continues to provide an incentive to keep playing. But other than those who hooked up with the occasional felonious agent, most athletes have managed their resources. Bling-bling is not the main thing to an aging veteran. Nor is it the “love of the game” cited by Henderson and others. It runs much deeper than that.

“It’s incredibly difficult” to retire, said Chris Stankovich, a Columbus, Ohio-based sports psychologist. “Many athletes, elite athletes, begin to take on what we call an exclusive athlete identity. It’s not only how they view themselves but how others view them. From a very early age, they overly identify themselves as athletes and, unfortunately, people in their lives do it on a subconscious level.”

Stankovich, who works with athletes making the transition to the so-called real world, said many don’t understand their value beyond sports. Nothing else appears on their resume, “and they don’t know they have what they believe are transferable skills,” he said.

It’s also true that many have no other skills, transferable or otherwise.

Redskins defensive end Bruce Smith, who is starting his 19th season in the NFL, needs four sacks to break Reggie White’s career record. Last week he said he expects the mark to stand for a long time once he owns it “because no one would be crazy or stupid enough to play this long.” Smith later said he was trying to add some levity. The reality is, most athletes would sacrifice almost anything, including their bodies, for such longevity.

“Man, it’s tough to let that thing go,” said Smith, who turned 40 in June. “It really is. Once you get that competitive nature in you, you eat it, you breathe it, you think it. It’s the only thought that’s on your mind. It’s extremely difficult to let something go that you’ve been attached to for such a long time.”

Smith bristles at any suggestion he is prolonging his career to set the record. For one thing, he said, he can still play. He had nine sacks for the Redskins in 2002 and is expected to be the main source of pressure on opposing quarterbacks this year. “If you’re playing at a high level, there’s no reason to walk away,” he said.

When he does leave and awaits his Hall of Fame induction, Smith insists he will be at peace. He is financially secure and involved in several business interests, including a job with a large, prestigious construction company. Mainly, it’s the competition, and the prospect of winning, that keeps him going. Two years ago, Smith didn’t feel that way and contemplated quitting because he was tired of losing. “You get a little pep to your step when you’re winning, although [playing] still hurts,” he said. “When you’re losing, it hurts twice as bad.”

Former Redskins tight end Rick “Doc” Walker said athletes aren’t the only ones who have trouble letting go. “It’s no different with politicians, CEOs,” he said. “Show me someone good at something high profile, demanding, pressure-packed, who says they can walk away easy, and I’ll show you a liar.

“It’s chic to say athletes go on too long,” said Walker, who was forced to retire because of injuries after nine NFL seasons but has forged a successful career in broadcasting and other endeavors. “Senior citizens rebel against forced retirement. I’ve never met a successful politician who was happy at the end of his term. If people are good at what they do, especially if it’s high-risk and exhilarating, they want to do it forever. It’s the thrill of accomplishment, of being depended upon. It’s an overwhelming sense of satisfaction.”

Fullback Larry Centers, who has caught more passes out of the backfield than anyone else in NFL history, contemplated retiring after 13 seasons. Released by the Buffalo Bills because of the salary cap, he was home in Texas, working at being a full-time father, when the New England Patriots called.

He signed last week.

“Going to New England gives me the chance to do what I do,” said Centers, who views the Patriots offense as the right fit for his talents. “This gives me the opportunity to do my craft, to work at my thing, to work my jelly, as they say.”

But it goes beyond the jelly. The real sustenance comes from winning a championship. Like Karl Malone signing with the Los Angeles Lakers, Centers sees this as a last chance to win it all. In nine years with the hapless Arizona Cardinals, he reached the playoffs once, in 1998. Centers’ only other postseason appearance came with the Redskins the following season.

“I haven’t really sniffed a Super Bowl,” he said. “That was a major part of my decision. This team is two years removed from the Super Bowl. Same coach, same quarterback, same nucleus.”

But sometimes such dreams can turn nightmarish. Last season Trey Junkin came out of retirement at 41 to play for the New York Giants, who were desperate for a qualified deep snapper. “Money is not the problem,” he said at the time. “I want a ring.”

Be careful what you wish for. With the Giants in position to kick the winning field goal against San Francisco in the first round of the playoffs, Junkin’s snap went awry (earlier, a bad snap led to a missed kick). Holder Matt Allen had to scramble and heave a desperation pass for the end zone that fell incomplete. The Giants also were flagged for an ineligible receiver downfield. Allen could have spiked the ball to give kicker Matt Bryant another chance — it was third down — and it was later determined the 49ers were guilty of pass interference, but never mind. The play stood and the Giants lost 39-38.

“I [messed] it up,” said Junkin, who, after 20 years in the NFL, had become Bill Buckner. “It’s something I’ve done for 32 years, but not anymore.”

And with that, he retired for good — one game too late.

• Staff writer Jon Siegel contributed to this report.