Note: This column originally appeared in the May 26, 2005, edition of The Press-Enterprise, with an independent minor league team about to launch in San Diego and an unexpected player preparing to join the team — Rickey Henderson. Henderson, who died Saturday at the age of 65, had last played in the majors in 2003 with the Dodgers, but the urge to play kept bringing the 10-time All-Star and two-time World Series champ out of retirement.

SAN DIEGO — Cooperstown will still be there, whenever Rickey Henderson is ready.

The man who has scored more runs and stolen more bases than anyone else in the history of Major League Baseball is a certain Hall of Famer, almost assuredly a first-ballot selection. The problem is the little detail of being retired from the game five years before you can be eligible for the Baseball Writers of America ballot.

Rickey, at 46, just isn’t the retiring type.

That has brought him here, to a college ballpark and a first-year independent league. Tony Gwynn Stadium, on the campus of San Diego State, is literally 10 miles from Petco Park, home of the Padres — but figuratively it may as well be on another planet, so distant is the lowest rung of baseball’s ladder from its highest.

Doesn’t matter. Just like the previous two seasons when he started the year with the Newark Bears of the Atlantic League, Henderson begins the 90-game season of the San Diego Surf Dawgs with the intention of ending it in a big league uniform, somewhere, somehow.

In the meantime, a roster full of comparative kids will learn a little something about how a big leaguer acts. And just maybe, a start-up circuit full of ambition and little else might not only get off the ground but also stay aloft for a while.

The Surf Dawgs are part of the Golden Baseball League — the full name is stressed, probably to differentiate it from the Golden Curling League, or the Golden Box Lacrosse League.

For months after the league announced its 2005 launch, no one paid attention. Then Rickey signed a contract May 9, for the league maximum salary of $3,000 a month, plus a side deal at an undisclosed amount for marketing and personal appearances. Team publicist Ian Cohen’s cell phone started ringing, and it hasn’t stopped much since.

“We’d call (before) and people might say, `Oh, you’re that girls softball league,’” he said. “Now Rickey’s playing, so it’s a real league.”

Real enough that ESPN has called. And producers from the “Tonight Show with Jay Leno” (Henderson is booked for a June appearance). And Rolling Stone. Tonight’s opener is a 3,000-seat sellout, and Cohen estimated that the team has sold 500 tickets a day since Henderson signed.

Rickey is happy to oblige. But he’s not here for the publicity. He still has a passion for the game, and he still thinks he can play in the big leagues.

Don’t laugh. Julio Franco is four months older and still hacking for the Atlanta Braves (though he’s hitting .218).

Rickey may be a little disingenuous when he professes not to understand why big league teams haven’t called him; his last stint, 30 games with a .208 average for the 2003 Dodgers, might have something to do with it. But consider: In 2004 with Newark he hit .281, stole 37 bases in 39 tries, and drew 96 walks in 91 games.

Surely the on-base percentage groupies in big league front offices had to notice that, didn’t they?

“If I wasn’t playing to get to the big leagues, I wouldn’t even be playing,” Henderson said Wednesday morning, relaxing in the Tony Gwynn Stadium dugout before batting practice.

“I’m a little puzzled why I haven’t gotten the shot to go out there and compete . . . I’m not injury prone. I’m not hurt. Why wouldn’t somebody attempt to see what I can do? If I can’t do it, I’ll be the first one to hang up my shoes. I know I can still play. I have the passion. I still love the game.”

If he transmits that passion to the young men playing alongside him, he will have made a valuable contribution even if he never plays another big league game. The kids — so to speak — are a mix of guys with organizational experience, guys who have bounced around independent leagues and first-year players, all sharing a dream.

“They’re not wide-eyed, but they’re listening,” said Surf Dawgs manager (and former Padre) Terry Kennedy. “They know who they’re talking to, the greatest leadoff hitter of all time, and he’s got some things to say — even if it may be in a different language. They’re becoming bilingual. They can speak English and Rickey.”

At first, said infielder Tony Garcia, players were a little hesitant around Henderson. But that went away quickly.

“He’s a personable guy, real friendly,” said Garcia, 24, a former Temecula Valley High star who played at Pepperdine and reached Class AA with the Colorado organization. “We crack on him a little bit, whether it’s his T-shirt or his car or the music he listens to. He’s one of the guys right now in the clubhouse.”

With a difference. No one else in that room probably will ever get a Hall of Fame vote. So, naturally, the question always comes up: Why delay the inevitable?

“Everybody keeps saying I’m pushing the Hall of Fame back — but what does the Hall of Fame have to do with me playing baseball?” Henderson asked.

Good point.

We criticize the athlete who stays around too long, maybe because we hate the memories of Willie Mays falling down in center field, or Magic Johnson airballing a hook shot in the lane.

But Rickey is still in great shape, and he’s still passionate about the game. And if someone is willing to let him play . . . well, who are we to tell him it’s time to leave?

Footnote: Henderson played 73 games for San Diego in what turned out to be his last season, hitting .270 with a .456 on-base percentage and .859 OPS and adding five homers, 29 homers and 16 stolen bases. He went into the Hall of Fame in 2019, receiving 94.8 percent of the vote in the Baseball Writers Association of America balloting.