The passing of Willie Mays, the ”Say Hey” kid, on Tuesday hit me hard.
I’m the sentimental type, as many loyal readers may already know. So even the remote connection I had with a member of sports royalty always has meant a great deal.
I gained that brief — but to me lifelong — connection with Willie Mays, the greatest all-around player the game of baseball has ever seen, thanks to three people: Cy Newbegin, Dick Donovan and Paul Barkhouse, in 1978.
During my early years covering sports at The Salem News, Mays was in Boston one July week doing a low-key promotional gig for Suffolk Downs. That was where Donovan, a golf chum of my publisher, Cy Newbegin, was the general manager.
One afternoon Donovan brought Mays, an avid golfer, to play Ferncroft Country Club. Donovan gave Barkhouse, the popular Ferncroft pro, permission to let Larrabee know that Mays was on the golf course. Mays agreed to give the local writer an interview after the round, which prompted Barkhouse to give this agent the heads up.
I made it to Ferncroft faster than a speeding bullet. I was nervous but ready to meet the Hall of Famer who, at the time with 660 home runs, was No. 2 on baseball’s all-time list, behind only Babe Ruth’s 714.
I met the former New York/San Francisco Giant in a deserted Ferncroft locker room. He had just stepped out of the shower when I arrived, so I introduced myself quickly and respectfully and offered to give him some time to dry off and get dressed before our chat.
“Hi Gary,” Mays replied as he toweled off. “We can start now, so fire away. Dick Donovan warned me you’d be doing a brief interview. Happy to do it. Wanna talk golf, baseball or both?”
Mays looked like he could still run down a fly ball to deep center, like when he robbed Cleveland’s Vic Wertz in the 1954 World Series at the Polo Grounds in New York.
“I asked him several questions about his unparalleled major league career, his connection to baseball at the time (he had been retired for 5 years), and his love for the game of golf.
“Golf? It’s a whole lot different from baseball mentally and physically,” Willie said. “But in both you better have concentration, be focused and pay attention all the time or you won’t be successful.”
Thanks to my career files, I was able to provide memories for this appreciation.
Mays kept our exchange brief, as he’d promised, but a sincere handshake and “thanks for showing interest in me” was all I needed to make my trip worthwhile and, quite frankly, unforgettable.
Willie Mays. One of a kind, like three other all-time baseball greats I was able to interview on behalf of The Salem News: DiMaggio, Ted Williams and Carl Yastrzemski.
Lucky me.
Gary Larrabee was a sportswriter and golf expert for The Salem News from 1971-95.