He Was a Hero to This Fan Until the End

Several years ago, a friend of mine was dying way ahead of his time.

He was only 40, he had cancer and, by chance, I was visiting in his hospital room at St. Joe’s when the phone rang.

His wife answered, then handed him the phone.

He reacted as if he’d been given the ultimate magic potion.

“Hey, Brooks!” he said after the caller identified himself.

It was Brooks Robinson, Hall of Famer and former third-baseman for the Baltimore Orioles. My friend loved the Orioles, and his friends and family knew that a call from Robinson would buoy him.

They talked for a few minutes. It was small talk but, of course, it mattered. I guarantee you, those two people on opposite ends of the line who’d never met knew instinctively from 3,000 miles apart why the conversation mattered.

For my friend, it was the chance to talk with a boyhood hero.

For Robinson, it was a gesture that grew from his understanding of what ballplayers mean to their fans.

I choked up in the room, mostly from Robinson’s kindness in calling, but also from seeing that in the fading light of an adult’s life, a man had become luminous again because of his feelings for a baseball player.

Later that night, I ruminated. What if I were in that bed? A baseball lover since boyhood, I wondered who I would want calling with a word of cheer.

The answer was Willie Stargell.

I’ve been a Pittsburgh Pirates fan since 1958, joining the ranks of millions of young boys who pick a favorite team and swear loyalty. It just so happened I meant it. I was in junior high when Stargell came up to the big club in the early ‘60s, but back then he wasn’t special--merely the newest face in the family.

But because of the way baseball used to operate, I had years to get to know him.

Players in those days couldn’t move from team to team, so family stayed family. Confining for the players, but highly conducive for impressionable young boys like me forming lifetime bonds with sports heroes.

Not Strangers but Friends

I’m a grown man now but still can’t quite shake that affinity for the Pirates. Nor did I ever get over my admiration for Stargell.

That’s why Monday turned gloomy when I heard that Stargell had died at 61. He’d had kidney trouble for years, and reports indicated that a stroke killed him.

I’d never met Stargell or even gotten an autograph. Still, friends offered condolences.

I didn’t even know the guy, did I?

Wrong, we do know these guys.

Maddening as it may be, our fortunes are tied to theirs. We cheer and coax them on; they deliver the goods on the field. That’s the compact: We give them everything we’ve got; they give us everything they’ve got.

And when they lose the really big games, don’t they realize how many of our dreams go right down the drain? Don’t they realize what we’ve invested?

The really good guys like Stargell understand it. They probably even know we’re irrational, but they accept it because they know that’s how families behave. Eventually, all is forgiven.

So there was a method to the madness when Stargell adopted the “Fam-a-lee” moniker for the Pirates in 1979. That year, a city rallied behind a good club that wound up winning the World Series. Stargell, then an aging player, hit the game-deciding homer.

When you’ve put 21 years into a team, as I had at that point, you don’t forget the guy who wins the World Series for you.

Since that last Pirate World Series, I’ve put in another 21 years with the club, most of them minus Stargell. In all honesty, it hasn’t been the same since.

Don’t ask me why we lionize sports heroes. It probably represents some deficiency in us. Or maybe it’s so deeply encoded we just can’t help it.

All I know is that the feelings aren’t phony.

I know they’re real because I saw it when Brooksie called my friend in his hospital bed, and I know they’re real because watching Stargell twirl that bat in the TV tributes the other night made me feel good all over again.

Twenty-some years ago, my beloved spouse gave me a raggedy doll for Christmas. It was stitched from gold and black cloth--the Pirates’ colors. In a nice touch, she dubbed him Mr. Stargell.

I don’t know where my former beloved spouse is these days, but Mr. Stargell still rests on a bookcase shelf at home.

From afar, I’ve tracked the real Mr. Stargell for nearly 40 years. From boyhood to manhood, mine and his.

No regrets on my end, except that I feel as though I owed him a tip of the cap.

A final tip of the cap, if you will, to a strapping ballplayer whom I once pictured phoning me on my deathbed but, for some odd reason, I never pictured on his.

*

Dana Parsons’ column appears Wednesdays, Fridays and Sundays. Readers may reach Parsons by calling (714) 966-7821 or by writing to him at The Times’ Orange County edition, 1375 Sunflower Ave., Costa Mesa, CA 92626, or by e-mail to dana.parsons@latimes.com.