The Great Man
July 30th, 2008 § 1 Comment
He was coming to town and I was staying home.
I had read volumes about him, watched films and tapes of him, lionized him, and I was staying home. I had never met him, never seen him in three dimensions, and I was staying home. My family room is packed with Mays memorabilia – my sons call it “The Shrine” – and I was staying home. Even staying home, this would be the closest I had ever been to him, yet I decided not to get any closer. I was afraid.
Willie Mays had been my idol since I was eleven. A Little League coach in my South Carolina hometown saw me make a basket catch and hollered “Say Hey!” Mr. Bill was a great man and the very model of what a Little League coach should be. We were particularly blessed in that little southern town with several exceptional coaches like “Mr. Bill,” but he was the man all the rest followed. A bear of a man with a voice both booming and gentle – as the occasion demanded – he had a heart God created just for kids – and baseball.
“Sir?” I asked, as was the custom of that place and time.
“Say Hey. You know, Willie Mays.”
I didn’t know Willie Mays. This was 1963, the very middle of Willie’s career. He would hit .314 for the San Francisco Giants that year and smack 38 home runs, bringing his career total to over 400. He would win yet another Gold Glove and was already established as one of the greats of the game at the end of the game’s greatest era. And I didn’t know him.
In small town South Carolina in the early ‘60′s, it wasn’t easy for kids to follow major league baseball. Long before cable or satellite, we depended on stations broadcasting from miles away for our television fare. There were no teams in the South. The Braves were three years from Atlanta and the Senators were over 500 miles away. Even though South Carolina’s favorite son, Bobby Richardson, played for New York, it was impossible for me to root for a team called “Yankees.” (I have often wondered how a good Christian boy like Bobby could put on that uniform.)
Game broadcasts were limited, usually to Saturday afternoons. Sorry, but an eleven-year old is out playing the game on Saturday, not watching it. Besides, parents preferred (and were more insistent about) having us “go outside on a nice day.” Play and chores won out over TV baseball.
So, I didn’t know Willie Mays.
Mr. Bill explained to me that Mays, the “Say Hey Kid,” played center field for the Giants and often made basket-style catches like I just did. He told me that Mays had a powerful bat and could run faster than anyone wearing cleats. He played the outfield like no other and had an arm that did not merely throw, it launched.
Mr. Bill told me that the Say Hey Kid was the best player in baseball.
Mr. Bill could not only teach us how to play the game, he could even inspire us to read. I got from the library (our one-room town depository), one of those big print, illustrated, made-for-kids biographies on Willie Mays. I became a fan.
As I grew up, I read more about him, but I never had the chance to see him play. I married and reared my two sons on the historical certainty that Willie Mays was the greatest all-round baseball player that ever lived. As they began to collect baseball cards, so did I, eventually concentrating on Mays. As I got more into the hobby – trying all the while to convince my wife that is really an investment – two dynamics became clear:
- Willie, by now a Hall of Famer, was usually out of my price range, and
- How could anyone pay more for a Mantle card than for a Mays?
I bought books on Willie – on baseball in general. I have well over 130 volumes on the sport now. In buying most of them, there is one hard rule; if Willie Mays is not properly referenced, that book will not grace my shelves. I have a couple of Willie Mays autographed baseball, a Willie Mays autographed bat, a couple of Willie Mays autographed cards and several Willie Mays autographed photos. But none were signed for me. I ordered them or bought them from dealers. I had never seen him – never spoken to him. He remained confined to only two dimensions.
Now, he was coming to town. And I was staying home.
The Babe Ruth Museum in Baltimore (in the suburbs of which I now live) was hosting a major event as part of the commemoration of the Bambino’s 100th birthday. A huge card/memorabilia show was to be held at which many Hall of Famers would appear to sign autographs. Willie was among them.
And I was staying home.
Suppose, I feared, he had a bad flight. Maybe his breakfast was cold or his hotel bed too soft – or too hard. Maybe he had a headache or maybe there was discomfort in those magnificent legs. Maybe he was tired. And maybe, because of any of those possibilities, he was not…himself. Not the boisterous “Say Hey Kid” I knew from books and videos. Suppose he was short with someone – maybe even me. Suppose he didn’t live up to the image I had of him. What then of over 30 years of awe? What could I then tell my sons, both in college at the time, who had been reared on the legends of The Great Man? What would happen to my hero?
I didn’t want to chance it.
I knew that Willie, now over 20 years out of the game, is older and heavier. I knew he is slower and more tired. I knew, too, that these autograph sessions are tedious and can sap the energy and spirit from even the Say Hey Kid. I was prepared for such. I could handle whatever could be assigned to those conditions – and I was prepared to assign anything to those conditions.
I decided to go. On the morning of the day he was scheduled to appear, I decided to go. I grabbed my copy of his autobiography and went, only to be haunted by another worry.
What would I say to him?
I couldn’t live in a dream moment and say nothing to the man, or, worse, say something trite or stupid. Maybe, I thought, I’ll come up with something on the drive over.
I had to pay $35 for the signature, but I was ready for that, too. I knew how things are these days and, besides, since I never had the chance to pay for a ticket to see him play, I would let this thirty-five bucks make it up.
To avoid long lines, the event organizers numbered the tickets and called out blocks for queuing. As I arrived at the show, those holding Willie Mays tickets numbering between 100 and 250 were called. My number was 750. Yet another worry. He might run out of gas before my allotted time.
I went to the table at which he was signing. There he was, in three dimensions! As I expected, he was older and heavier and he looked tired. Nonetheless, at my first glimpse of him, my mind shot back to 1963. I think my heart stopped momentarily before it began to ricochet within my chest. I took a few pictures, pictures taken too far away to mean anything to anyone but me. After using up a roll of film, I started out to look at the vendor’s wares, always listening for the next update for ticket holders to line up for an autograph from Willie Mays.
I wasn’t satisfied with my selection of Willie’s book as a signing piece. I wanted something that could be displayed and a flyleaf doesn’t work. I began to look around for something else, eventually coming across a poster-sized replica of one of Willie’s baseball cards. I bought it – the last one the guy had – literally seconds before another Mays fan showed up looking for the same thing.
I didn’t feel sorry for him for, you see, God meant for me to have that poster, and God and Willie Mays is a tough combination to beat.
Now, with a good signing piece in hand, I waited. And I wondered what I would say to him.
The time came and I added myself to the line that snaked around in that theme-park fashion designed to get a lot of folks in as little space as possible. This configuration allowed me, every once in a while, to be within a few feet of The Great Man as he signed…and signed…and signed.
Something disturbed me – and does still. People would push items in front of Willie as if he were a machine on an assembly line. They would not speak – not even to thank him. Rather, they took their collectible and, most likely, began to calculate how much they could get for it.
Apparently accustomed to this, Mays signed, seldom lifting his head. It saddened me. DON’T THEY REALIZE WHO THIS MAN IS? Are these people here because this man has a plaque in Cooperstown, or do they, like me, recognize that he is special? Maybe they, like me, couldn’t decide what to say.
No. They were too disconnected from the moment to feel The Presence. Their eyes didn’t have that gleam found only in little boys (and man-boys) when they look at their baseball hero. There are only a couple of times in a male’s life when he gets that look – other than inspired by a ball player. One is when he realizes that the woman at whom he is staring is the one and true love of his life, and the other is when he sees his newborn child for the first time. In all cases, there is love behind the eyes. Here, I didn’t see that look.
I concluded that I was the only true disciple. The only one in this huge crowd that understood and appreciated. Yet despite that enlightenment, I didn’t know what to say to him.
I knew conversation was not possible – too many people waiting in line for that. I knew I had a chance at one or two sentences. I wanted those sentences to be as special as I considered Willie Mays to be. As special as he was to me for over 30 years. But how do you tie up 30 years of adoration in a few hastily prepared words in the middle of a crowd?
I didn’t want to say, “I’m a big fan.” That’s as hollow as to say nothing at all. And I certainly wasn’t going to say “I have a shrine to you in my house.” Explaining that to the security people would be time consuming and embarrassing.
I was getting closer to my moment and I still didn’t know what I would say to Willie Mays. What would my sons suggest? What would make upon him the impact I wanted to convey? How do I let him know that I’m not like the others?
I wanted him to know that I was there on a personal pilgrimage.
What would Mr. Bill suggest?
I approached the table, sheepishly handing to The Great Man the poster I bought especially for this moment. As I looked down at the top of his head while he signed, I could think of only one thing to say. The only thing that made any sense. The one thing that, to me, explained why I was there, at this place, at this moment, in three dimensions.
He finished and, as with so many before me, he did not look up.
“Mr. Mays, I think you’re the greatest baseball player that ever lived. Thank you.”
The Great Man looked at me. Those eyes that looked into the skies over the Polo Grounds to haul in Vic Wertz’s fly ball; those eyes that saw, from the on-deck circle, Bobby Thompson’s “shot heard ‘round the world; those eyes that stared down some of the greatest pitchers the game has ever known; those eyes looked at me.
A small, tired smile came to him. It was the Say Hey Kid!
“Thank you,” said The Great Man.
And he reached out and shook my hand.
“Say Hey!” Mr. Bill.
good ,we are like ,come on