The cover was already designed and Rickey Henderson struck the familiar, confident pose.

The problem was that the subject of the cover story didn’t know he would be the face of the first issue of USA TODAY Baseball Weekly.

It was spring training in 1991. Social media, smartphones and the internet didn’t exist yet.

Our writer Tim Wendel arrived in Arizona unaware that Henderson had blamed the media for the boos he heard from the crowd. The reigning American League MVP wanted to renegotiate his contract.

“I say, ‘Yeah, the first cover is going to be Rickey, so I’m going to do Rickey,'” Wendel recalled telling other baseball writers he knew, “and almost everyone I met said, ‘ Oooh, good luck with that. He doesn’t talk to anyone.’ And I say, “Uh oh.” ”

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