Rickey Henderson/John Olerud/batting helmet

Many baseball announcers continue to mention this one as though it's true. To give credit where it's due, I thought this was true until 2007 when I overheard URISoxFan mention that it's his favorite urban legend. This is explained here.

Another Rickey story. When he hooked up with the Seattle Mariners last year, Rickey is said to have approached John Olerud, who had once suffered a brain aneurysm, and asked about his unusual practice of wearing a batting helmet in the field. Henderson says, "I used to play with a dude in New York who did the same thing."

"That was me," said Olerud, who was Henderson's teammate with both the Mets and the Blue Jays. Good story. Widely reported. And completely untrue -- concocted by a visiting player who had run out of hot-foot victims.