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McCovey will always be my hero

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At first, I wondered what I would write about, now that I’ve completed my report on our cross country trip to New Jersey.

Then I remembered I forgot to mention that we only encountered two vehicle accidents in all the time we were gone. Both were very similar. We saw a semi on its side in a Pennsylvania rainstorm the first year. This trip we were stuck in traffic for over an hour near downtown Atlanta. When we finally started moving, we came across another semi that had jack-knifed, and they were cleaning up their spilled load.

That’s not bad for the number of miles (5500 in 2017 and 8600 in 2018) we drove.

We did take another trip in early October. We took grandson Camden and his parents, Toni and Jason, to our timeshare in Newport Beach, Calif. We met up there with daughter Holly and her two girls, Brooke and Addy, who had the day off from school.

The girls and their mom are keeping up with their busy schedules. Brooke, 10, did not run for the student council this year because their meetings are the same time as her gymnastics class.

Addy, 8, started playing soccer this year. She has scored at least one goal in every game so far.

The girls had fun playing slime with Camden and getting to know him better.

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Well, Thursday, Nov. 1, was a day of mourning for me. I learned from my son, Brent, that he had heard on the way to work that Willie McCovey had died the night before at the age of 80.

“Isn’t that the ballplayer who was your boyhood hero?” Brent asked.

“Yes,” I said, “and I never got to tell him thank you.”

I was hoping to meet him next spring at a Cactus League function. He was one of the greatest natural hitters ever to play the game.

He played for the San Francisco Giants for most of his major league career. He was also one of the few players to play in parts of four decades.

I first became a fan of McCovey when he played for the Phoenix Giants in 1958 and half of 1959. My dad took me to games periodically during the summer months at the old Phoenix Municipal Stadium on Central and Mohave.

I will never forget how McCovey would repeatedly hit balls off the right field wall. Legendary New York Yankees Manager Casey Stengel would later say, “If McCovey had played in Yankee Stadium with its short right field wall he would have rewritten the home run record books.”

He did pretty well though. At the time of his retirement, he was tied with Ted Williams for 10th place in career home runs with 521. He got called up to the big leagues in July 1959. He made his debut against the Phillies’ star pitcher, Robin Roberts.

McCovey hit two triples and two singles.

And he didn’t stop there. He hit safely in his first seven games, and had a 22-game hitting streak. At the end of that first season, which was only supposed to be a trial assignment, he hit for a .354 average with 13 home runs and 38 RBI.

For his accomplishments he was named the National League’s Rookie of the Year.

And that is not all. The player everyone lovingly called, “Stretch,” was a six-time all-star and his ultimate achievement came in 1969 when he was named the National League’s Most Valuable Player. He led the league in homers (45) and RBI (126), while hitting for a .320 average.

He accomplished all of that without taking steroids. He didn’t need to. His six-foot–four-inch, 200-pound frame provided the power few could match.

I once saw him hit four consecutive foul balls that cleared the wall in right field, each measuring over 500 feet.

I got the first of three autographs signed by him at spring training in 1959. “You hear me now, always do your best,” he said.

He came from a family of 10 children in Alabama. His father was a railroad laborer. From those humble beginnings, he had a career that got him elected to the Baseball Hall of Fame the first year he was eligible.

I followed him throughout his career, checking the box scores daily in the morning newspaper to see how many hits he got the day before.

Yes, he was my hero. And I followed his advice throughout my career. And it paid off for me, as well. Thanks, Willie!