Willie Mays – Lee Duigon

A Summer’s Day, Back Then

leeduigon(patty)July 30, 2025

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Let’s go back to 1960, when I was 11 years old. It’s summer vacation, school is out–let’s go! Live it up!

Gobble up my breakfast, then rush outside with mitt and bat to see if my friends Jimmy and Frank are ready to play ball. They are. So we shag flies for a while, until there are enough kids there for a softball game.

Hop on the bikes, race through the woods next door, and stop at the spring for a drink (who would dare to do that now?). Back on the bikes, over to the candy store. And then to Tommy’s Pond to catch frogs… or fish.

Afternoon is almost played out. A quick dip in our backyard pool seems in order: then grab the newspaper before anybody else, so I can see how Willie Mays made out last night. Box scores tell the tale.

Then suppertime. Corn on the cob. The farm is ten minutes away by bike.

After supper, a game of kickball on the street… till it gets dark.

That day it was over 100 degrees outside. We had a lot of days like that! It was the middle of July, of course it was going to be hot. No one heard of “Climbit Change” or “Global Warming.” We did just fine without it. If you wanted air conditioning, go to the movies. Or to the dentist.

That’s how it was.

Willie Mays Forever!

leeduigon(patty)October 5, 2021

Belay the nooze, enough’s enough! I’m going to write about something that has always made me happy, and hopefully give you some pleasure, too.

“Unknowable” and I were chatting about celebrity, hero worship, and idolatry–they’re all related, aren’t they?–and I brought up the subject of… Willie Mays. To me, the greatest athlete that I ever saw.

Among other things, Willie was famous for this one play during the 1954 World Series. I was five years old. Anyhow, they were playing at the old Polo Grounds, where center field was about the size of a Jersey township, and Vic Wertz smashed a screaming fly ball to the deepest part of center field. A real moon shot. At this point, let the video speak for itself.

Willie lit up my childhood. He was my hero. But y’know what? I never felt the urge to delve into his personal life. I have made a conscious choice to remember him solely for the things I saw him do on the ballfield; and those are things that still give me deep aesthetic pleasure 67 years later. I think it’s the same kind of pleasure art lovers get, or music lovers, from their favorite masterpieces. Willie Mays in center field was the baseball equivalent of Beethoven’s 9th Symphony.

Yeah! Sitting on the floor in our sitting room, playing with my grandpa’s blocks that he handed down to me, while my mother did the ironing while watching the Giants’ game on TV. That’s a memory that gives me joy!

Baseball isn’t what it was, not by a long shot; I no longer care for it. But I do care for my memories: and for a good few of those I say, “Thanks, Willie!”

Mr. T’s Snickers Commercial

leeduigon(patty)July 22, 2019

I couldn’t think of anything more disdainful of political correctness than this Snickers commercial from some years ago, featuring the immortal Mr. T.

Back when Mr. T used to be on TV with The A-Team, I once overheard, at the supermarket, a little blue-eyed, flaxen-haired boy telling his mother that if only she would buy a certain plastic ring for him, “I can be just like Mr. T!”

If you think there’s something wrong with that, get out of here.

I grew up wanting to be like Willie Mays, and there was nothing wrong with that, either.

Another Shameless Commercial Message

leeduigon(patty)October 25, 2018

Image result for images of bell mountain series by lee duigon

As we try not to stew over what the doctor will say to us tomorrow, Patty’s recording my quarterly book sales statement. I haven’t the heart to look at it.

But say-hey, as Willie Mays would say! My books make great Christmas presents! For family members, friends, and casual acquaintances. For anybody. Give ’em Bell Mountain and get ’em hooked on the whole series. The books can’t do their job unless a lot of people read them. Unless maybe there’s one person out there who reads them and gets inspired to do something great.

Meanwhile, in sweater, coat, and hood, I’m out there every day it doesn’t rain, trying to finish writing His Mercy Endureth Forever: six hand-written pages today, and my hands are like ice. At the rate I’m going, I hope to finish sometime next week. Give God the glory for that!

And please don’t tell me you never heard of Willie Mays.

Memory Lane: A Hot Summer Day

leeduigon(patty)July 20, 2017

Image result for images of children playing in pond

When you’re ten years old and school is out on summer vacation, it doesn’t matter how hot the day is–you’re going for the gusto. At least, that’s how it used to be.

If it’s really, really hot, you play in the water. In our neighborhood, on the edge of the woods, was a little seasonal pond with a clean shale bottom. We sat in the water, or waded in it, splashing around with our toys. If you were a little older, the high school football field next door usually had its sprinkler system going, and we played around in that.

A hundred degrees? What did we care! We could squirt each other with garden hoses, or sit in rubber wading pools. And when I was twelve, I made sure I got the afternoon newspaper first so I could look at all the baseball box scores and see how Willie Mays did in the night game. I remember sitting on the lawn with the paper open to the sports page and my little iguana, very far from being a big iguana yet, perched on my shoulder.

So we rode our bikes and pitched horseshoes until we got hot, and then soaked down in the pond, the sprinklers, a pool, or in the front yard with the hose.

You never see that anymore. And that’s a pity, because it was good. I’m sorry kids miss out, these days, on times like that.