SAN DIEGO -- You the quiet type? Hate hustle and bustle? Always looking to carve out more time to read and think and contemplate some of life's quieter pleasures?

Rickey Henderson says he'll be back next year because he can outplay every team's worst outfielder.(AP)

Have we got a place for you:

The Rickey Henderson Hit Parade and Record Watch, now playing in San Diego's Qualcomm Stadium through season's end.

While the mob scene is jetting from city to city, tracking every Barry Bonds home-run launch from now until No. 71, Henderson is chasing one of baseball's most hallowed records -- that of Ty Cobb's all-time runs mark -- in an empty garden.

While the TV lights are trained on Bonds practically 24/7, Henderson, who also is within five hits of becoming just the 25th player in baseball history to collect 3,000, has more free time than the class clown at a National Honor Society meeting.

"I've surprised people, I guess,'' Henderson said. "I sneak up on people. I don't know, man. You wonder why this is so unknown? Y'all tell me. I don't know what's going on. I play baseball. That's what I do -- I go play baseball. When it happens, I'll just tip my cap."

In Houston, Bonds is coiled at 69 homers as he attempts to spring past Mark McGwire's single-season record of 70.

More than 250 media members are on the case, and commissioner Bud Selig joined this modern-day Brother Love's Traveling Salvation and Home-Run Show on Sunday in San Francisco.

In San Diego, Henderson's count is 2,244 runs scored (Cobb's record is 2,245) and 2,997 hits. It's a two-for-one offer and yet, even at that, representing the national media is ... um, well, ah ...

"I'm sure this has gotten the least attention of any of the guys who have 3,000 hits,'' San Diego manager Bruce Bochy said.

Well. Let's not get carried away here. When Nap Lajoie collected his 3,000th hit, TV hadn't even been invented yet -- it was 1914.

Honus Wagner, who finished with 3,415 hits (seventh all-time), played from 1897 to 1917. We're pretty sure the Farmer's Almanac didn't send a battery of reporters and photographers on the road with him.

Tris Speaker? He collected 3,514 hits between 1907 and 1928 -- and we can guarantee not once was the Grey Ghost asked to explain the origin of his nickname by pesky talk radio hosts.

So perhaps Bochy is exaggerating just a tad. But you get the idea. For two pretty significant milestones, things are awfully quiet around Henderson.

Of course, it's not just Bonds. So much has happened this summer that attention spans have been sliced thinner than the wedges of cantaloupe at Sunday brunch.

What attention doesn't go to Bonds is going to a couple of Hall of Famers who are in the last days of their careers -- Baltimore's Cal Ripken and San Diego's Tony Gwynn.

Then, of course, the events of Sept. 11 have consumed large quantities of our attention -- rightfully so.

"I don't know where the spotlight is,'' Henderson said. "It's weird, maybe, how we're presenting it. But it ain't weird to me, because it doesn't make a big difference until it's all over with. You just go play baseball.

"So much is going on. The tragedy in the world. Guys who have played with their teams 20 years leaving. Barry Bonds chasing the home-run record.''

For those who have been following this act from afar, Henderson is giving himself four more days this season to reach his milestones. He says he doesn't want to play Sunday because in San Diego it's pretty much Christmas, New Year's and the Fourth of July rolled into one: It's the day the Padres have set aside for a blow-out ceremony honoring Gwynn on the final day of the season.

"I'm not playing on Tony's day,'' Henderson declared Tuesday.

If it's between that and Henderson's stepping into the history book in 2002, Gwynn would prefer Henderson play Sunday -- he wants to be in the ballpark when Henderson passes Cobb and the 3,000-hit barrier. Bochy says Henderson will play every day this week, although he hasn't yet gotten to Sunday's plans.

Whatever happens, Henderson, 42, says he isn't sweating it because he's planning to return next season.

"I really ain't in that big of a rush,'' Henderson said. "I ain't in that big of a rush, because I ain't quitting this year. I've got (four) days to see what happens and give it a shot.''

From the outside, it sure appears as if he should be in a rush. It isn't exactly like teams are clamoring for an outfielder poised to win AARP's player of the year award this season. Even last spring, Henderson was jobless until the Padres finally signed him very late in camp, March 20.

"I don't know the reason why it took so long (to get a job this spring),'' Henderson said. "It ain't like I can't play baseball. It ain't like I can't play this year. I've played in 140-some games (118, to be precise).

"I can outplay 30 guys on 30 clubs. I know that much."

What Rickey means, of course, in Rickey-ese, is if you match him against the last outfielder on each of the 30 big-league clubs, there's no question he can outplay many of them. And he's got a point. Even though he's hitting just .231, he continues to get on base (his on-base percentage is an astounding .369) and he continues to run (he's got 25 steals).

But it sure is a lot more fun to let him make his own case -- even though, right now, it's one of those if-a-tree-falls-in-the-forest-when-nobody-is-around kind of things.

He sat in the dugout for the longest time before Tuesday night's game, holding court for ... well, maybe that's not quite right. Is it technically possible to hold court for three reporters?

"People talk about your age and how you should quit, instead of how wonderful it is that I'm still doing it,'' Henderson said. "If I was sitting back and not a player, I would want to be in Rickey Henderson's position.''

He says older men approach him in public all the time, telling him what an inspiration he is.

"They say, 'You make me feel young again,'" Henderson said. "I'd be saying that, too.

"I get a kick out of it, because I'm a little more smarter than most people. I just observe what's going on. God blessed me. I'm in his hands.''

A crowd of 22,442 showed up Tuesday night looking for a piece of history, but they didn't have much to cheer. Henderson reached base twice, via walks, but was wiped out as part of a double play in the sixth inning and then was caught stealing in the eighth.

Yes, hanging around the Rickey Watch these days is like wearing Calvin Kleins when everyone else has switched to Tommy Hilfiger. Even Brooke Shields.