Rickey Henderson and Jim Rice were inducted into the Hall of Fame yesterday. A lot of folks were either hoping or expecting that Rickey would say something silly or arrogant or what have you, but that was always going to be a longshot. While never one to suffer from self-esteem problems, it's been close to 20 years since Rickey has been the hot dog in the Oakleys we all remember, and anyone who watched and listened to him carefully as his career wound down knows that he (eventually) grew into a rather mature player with a sense of history and even, dare I say it, humility about him. I mean, how can you not be humble when you play in the independent leagues in your 40s like Henderson did?

Anyway, I thought his speech was very genuine and, at least on the Rickey scale, quite appropriate to the occasion. Indeed, given the man Henderson seems to have become, an instance of true "Rickeyspeak" probably would have seemed forced and wouldn't have been anywhere near as fun as a lot of commentators are snarking about today. I especially thought his nod to Billy Martin -- "Mr. Billy Martin always got the most out of me. I miss you very much, and I wish you were here with me today" -- was quite nice.

What can you say about Jim Rice? For a couple of years a lot of folks have been saying that he wasn't truly Hall of Fame worthy. Bill James called him "the most overrated player in the past 20 years" when he wrote his "Historical Baseball Abstract" in the late 1980s. I tend to agree with that assessment, but it's probably not worth getting all worked up about. His worthiness, or lack thereof, is a function of what any given person thinks the Hall of Fame is all about. If it's truly about "fame" he's a fine choice, as anyone who is around my age certainly grew up with him being talked about as one of the best players in the game, rightly or wrongly so. If you're more into the whole Hall of Merit thing, well, he probably doesn't belong there.

That argument is irrelevant now, of course, as he now and forever will be Jim Rice: Hall of Famer. As for his speech: Pretty much par for the course as these things go. An argument could be made that he showed less humility than Henderson, but I don't feel too strongly about making it. I did not know that his real name is Ed, so I guess you really do learn something new every day.

Overall, the best speech of the day came not from a player, but from a player's daughter, as Judy Gordon, daughter of Veteran's Committee inductee Joe Gordon, said her father "insisted against having a funeral, and as such, we consider Cooperstown and the National Baseball Hall of Fame as his final resting place."

That statement struck me just the right way yesterday. It seems so spot on. It's been awhile since I've been to Cooperstown, but when I was there as a kid, I got the same feeling I get when walking around an old graveyard. I mean that in the best of ways, mind you -- I love old graveyards. The dead seem to speak there, and if the setting is pleasing -- as Cooperstown certainly is -- you can't help but feel good about humanity as you tread about and think about those who came and went before.