Being an impressionable youth growing up in Oakland, Jimmy Rollins was exposed to the subtleties in Rickey Henderson’s game on a daily basis. Before he known as J-Roll, the Phillies current leadoff hitter was busy studying one of the all-time greats.

When you watch Rollins play now, the influence is obvious. The swagger, the approach at the plate, the textbook baserunning — he got all that from Rickey. I’ll bet you he even wore those fluorescent green Mizuno batting gloves during his little league games, too.

Now, some fifteen years later, the news came out that his idol made the Hall of Fame. So in honor of the occasion, Jimmy paid a visit to the John Marzano studios in Secaucus, NJ to film a segment for MLB Network and talk some Rickey with former MLBers Harold Reynolds, Al Leiter, and Barry Larkin. After the crew wax poetic about their playing days with the legend, Rollins grabs the lumber and humorously mimics an entire Rickey Henderson at-bat.

If your attention span is deficient, fast-forward to about the 1:50 mark for the best part. It’s rather entertaining.

That’s Rickey.

UPDATE: Paul Hagen has a good piece on this subject in this morning’s Daily News, here’s a blurb:

“I liked to get to the games early to watch him. That was the best part. Don’t get me wrong, the game was great, too. But my favorite part was to watch him stretch. He didn’t run that much, but he was stretching all the time. And he had those fluorescent green batting gloves. All that was entertainment. You just looked at him and said, ‘That guy is special.’”

Phillies shortstop Rollins proud of Henderson’s Hall of Fame honor | Daily News

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