Say Hey Forever

Willie Mays with Brent Kallestad, at Tallahassee on February 26, 2006 following a Black History Month celebration. Mays was among several sports celebrities to visit that day as guests of former Governor Jeb Bush. (Brent Kallestad)

 

My lifelong adoration of Willie Mays began quite accidentally in the summer of 1954 when as an 8-year-old I was just starting to learn the game playing catch with a friend, Carl Sisk, who lived right across the street from me and was two years older.

We were polishing our skills playing softball on a vacant lot just north of our home in Miller, South Dakota, and even let a girl or two play to even out the teams.

At some point that summer I’d heard a lot of this guy Mickey Mantle and decided that’s who I’d pretend to be, but Carl also wanted to be Mickey and we actually had a fight over who’d get to be him. Well, a bit older and a lot quicker, Carl pretty much won that match and I was crestfallen.

At dinner that night while I licked my wounds, my father said, why don’t you be Willie Mays? I’d never heard of Willie Mays at that point but dad filled me in on him and so that began an affection with the Say-Hey Kid.

Ironically, it wasn’t long after that Carl and his folks went to Chicago to visit some relatives and while in the Windy City took in a Cubs game. When they returned, Carl only wanted to be Ernie Banks and so Mantle was out the door since I was already Willie Mays.

And on my 9th birthday Mays made “the catch” in the first World Series that I paid attention to and I was hooked! Shortly after the sweep of the Indians, we got a new puppy and named it Willie.

In pickup games at Crystal Park during my elementary school days, I always wanted to play center field and several of my friends would just call me Willie. The nickname “Willie” lasted for several years through not only my high school days but over my lifetime. Our 60th high school reunion is scheduled in 2023 and I can almost guarantee that at least three of my buddies from the good old days will still call me Willie! We’ve held reunions every five years and it seems some things just never change.

Oh, despite my desire for center field, I was moved to third base, a position I played for four seasons in American Legion ball. By this time the Twins had moved to neighboring Minnesota and since I played third, favored Harmon Killebrew while retaining Mays as number 1. My last year in Legion ball, possibly the last two, I played third base, hit third, and wore number 3, Killebrew’s uniform number.

Unfortunately, I never got to see Mays play in person. I did, however, meet him on a one-to-one basis on two occasions.

The first time was at the 1975 All-Star Game in Milwaukee, and credit for the introduction goes to Clark Griffith, son of then Twins owner Calvin Griffith. Clark was just a few years older than me and often spent time around the media. Good, cordial guy.

I was the Associated Press bureau sportswriter in the Twin Cities and the Twins were among my beats during the mid-1970s. I was assigned to help cover the All-Star Game that year and came to Milwaukee in the early afternoon the day before.

Clark arranged that I come down to a dinner at a Milwaukee hotel on the eve of the game where Mays would be in attendance. He pulled Willie from the group of roughly 18 or 20 folks (Stan Musial and Bowie Kuhn among them) and introduced me. It was pretty brief but long enough for me to share my appreciation to Mays and let him know (I was 29 years old at the time) how much I’d enjoyed cheering for him for the past 20-plus years.

And the second time was in 2005 or possibly 2006 when Gov. Jeb Bush invited me to attend a welcome for Mays at the Florida state capitol. By now I was AP’s senior political writer in Florida and had known Governor Bush since 1986, when he began his ascent in politics. Again, a short but sweet meeting with Mays, but this time our AP photographer got a picture of us visiting. It sits under glass with other significant career pictures in my home retirement office.

I’ll go to my grave believing that Mays was the most complete and most exciting baseball player of the twentieth century. And eternally grateful to my dad for giving his young baseball-loving son a lifetime hero.

A six-year SABR member, BRENT KALLESTAD spent his career in journalism, including a four-year period in the mid-’70s when he covered the Minnesota Twins as the beat writer early in his 40-year career with the Associated Press. It was at a time Harmon Killebrew and Tony Oliva were winding down Hall of Fame careers and Cooperstown-bound Rod Carew was nearing the end of his days in Minnesota with a streak of American League batting titles. A memorable highlight for Brent before AP days was a story written in 1969 for the Florida Times-Union following his interview with Elmer Smith, who hit the first World Series grand slam. Brent has a Bachelor of Arts in mass communications from the University of South Dakota and two diplomas from the Department of Defense Information School obtained during his service in the US Navy. He is a member of the Buck O’Neil SABR chapter based in Tallahassee.