Publicity stills from “Toy Story 4” were released this week, revealing that a new character in the Pixar movie is … Rickey Henderson?

Emeryville-based Pixar is known for including specific East Bay nods in its movies, from the subtle inclusion of San Pablo Avenue in “The Incredibles,” to actually-part-of-the-plot Fentons Creamery in “Up.”

But the appearance of Oakland A’s legend Henderson in bobblehead form, whether it’s a major character or just a short cameo, may be a new high point in East Bay love.

The news was first reported late Wednesday on the Twitter feed of Chronicle A’s beat reporter Susan Slusser. The plot of “Toy Story 4” involves a road trip and an antiques shop. In the new image, Woody seems to look worried, flanked by Bo Peep and some older toys. The smiling ballplayer is in a pose similar to Henderson’s arms-in-the-air celebration after surpassing Lou Brock atop the all-time stolen base list.

While there are a lot of baseball fans at Pixar, the heavy influence here may be Jonas Rivera, “Toy Story 4” producer, Castro Valley native and Oakland A’s superfan. Rivera produced the Pete Docter-directed “Up” and “Inside Out,” arguably the two Pixar movies with the strongest Bay Area DNA weaved into the plots.

(Among the subtle “Up” Easter eggs was a hamburger on Russell’s Wilderness Explorer sash, which Docter and Rivera confirmed was a tribute to the the hamburger cake at Oakland’s Merritt Bakery.)

Rivera was interviewed for an entire chapter in the 2019 book “If These Walls Could Talk: Stories From the Oakland A’s,” co-written by Slusser and A’s announcer Ken Korach. The producer compared the renegade spirit of Oakland and the A’s to Steve Jobs and his work helping to build Pixar into a creative animation force.

“The A’s, to me, are born out of that attitude,” Rivera told Slusser and Korach. “This city is born out of that, always in the shadow of San Francisco, and always the underdog. The city of Oakland and the teams here have to fight harder. Pixar, in my mind, is cut from the same cloth. Especially in the early days. Jobs was all about counterculture and throwing the ball the other way, so to speak.”

Rivera threw out the first pitch at a 2014 Oakland A’s game, meeting his hero Henderson on the way off the field.

Exactly how a Rickey Henderson bobblehead fits into the saga of Woody, Buzz Lightyear and Slinky Dog won’t be a secret for long. “Toy Story 4” is set for a June 21 release.