Treasure The Memory

[Luke]

When I was 14 or so, my friend's dad took us down to Spring Training in Arizona. One night, in the 5th inning of a Giants game in Scottsdale, we saw a group of people crowding around someone. We went in for a closer look, and it was Willie Mays! He was signing baseballs and scraps of paper, but only for the really little kids. I guess we were too old. So, he gets in the back seat of a Lincoln Town Car and the driver pulls away. We were disappointed he didn't sign our baseballs, but we both just kind of looked at each other and took off running. The streets were deserted, but the lights took forever. We caught up to his car at the first light and then again at the next light. At the third light, he rolls down his window and says, "Alright, get over here." When he was signing my ball, he grumbled that I was blocking the streetlight and he couldn't see the ball. When I looked at it, I saw that he had started again after saying that he couldn't see the ball. I may have the only Willie Willie Mays autographed ball in existence. Definitely my favorite memory from collecting autographs. It still makes me smile that here he was, being really nice and having his driver stop even when the light turned red, but he was still his curmudgeonly self.