SAY HEY
As a boy I had two heroes. Firemen - they were first because they’d walk into hell itself - and because they let me hang out at the firehouse while I was skipping catechism. The second, and greatest of my heroes, was a man with such a down-home goodness that it made me feel like I knew him. He had style. And if I was sitting down when I saw him, he could actually bring me to my feet. I loved that man. I still do. His name is Willie Mays. I mean to tell you he could hit ‘em and he could catch ‘em too. He had pizazz.
I kept his baseball card tucked in the frame of my bedroom mirror. It was my shrine. I’d stand there and look at him, and look at me. Him. And me. I wanted more than anything to be like him.
"C’mon son," my father would call. "Let’s get in some practice." He was a ballplayer too. He was on the farm association team that played against the men who worked at the factories, and the men in the prison. So I’d grab my glove and walk with him out to the fields of our dairy farm. I’d shag the flies he’d hit and then I'd throw ‘em in. That man could hit a baseball. After awhile I’d get in a good groove and waltz under one of those skyscrapers he’d hit. I’d measure it perfectly, then basket-catch it. Just like Willie Mays.
"Goddamnit, never mind that fancy stuff!" My father would holler out to me. It made him hot. "Being a showboat won’t get you into the big leagues. Two hands. Fundamentals. Fundamentals. Master the fundamentals and your natural talent will rise like cream. C’mon now."
I heard it a million times. Then he’d hit one over the moon just to back me out of the fields into the pasture. He figured the cow paddies would keep my mind off of the imitating.
I’d drift, drift, drift through green summer grass and sidestep, arms reaching and balancing as I casually and confidently sidestepped while that ragged old hard ball arced across a blue afternoon. Popping my fist into the worn leather palm of my outfielder’s glove I’d plant my feet, paddies or no paddies, then concentrate even harder, and then basket-catch it. "Say hey!" I’d call to my father. Just like Willie Mays.