More Memoria

Yesterday I memorialized my dad on the grounds that he, a non-baseball fan, taught me something about baseball at a ball game where Kent Hrbek provided the only other memorable event by hitting a ball into old Tiger Stadium’s third deck.  Hrbek was in the featured photo even though he hasn’t died.

Today I want to remember an actual baseball player: Bill Buckner. Yesterday news of his death brought forth a steady stream of tributes about what a great person he was, how he bore up so well under the abuse he received for Mookie Wilson’s 1986 dribbler up the first base line, and how he was so gracious when the Red Sox honored him in 2007. I’ve seen the iconic play dozens of times.  Yesterday was the first time I saw video of him receiving a huge Fenway Park ovation while throwing out the first pitch in the 2008 Red Sox home opener.

It’s also the first time I’ve seen his guest star appearance on Curb Your Enthusiasm, a TV show I never watched one second of.  (One of many, many, many such shows, which kills me in trivia contests.) I’ve seen 90 seconds of it now, and so can you. Buckner concludes the episode by making a spectacular diving catch of a baby who has been cast out of a window about five stories up in a burning building. I got chills watching it, not so much for Buckner’s heroics, but at the horrifying spectacle of a crowd of people encouraging the frantic mother to toss her baby out the window when she’s just about to be rescued by a ladder truck and could carry the baby down.

I think of Buckner as a Dodger.  He debuted with them in 1969, as the Dodgers were beginning their climb out of their post-Koufax pit of depression. He was there with Garvey, Russell, and Cey, a gang of young good players who looked like they would lead the Dodgers back to the promised land.  I have his rookie card somewhere. I was still a Dodger fan then, although I moved to Oregon the same year Koufax retired, so it was hard slogging in this baseball-resistant state. I was not happy when Buckner got traded for Rick Monday, even though he seemed to lag a bit behind the other young Dodger stars. He always looked so serious, even fierce. I had no clue he was a kind and gracious person. Maybe he wasn’t.  Maybe he grew into those virtues, maybe even the Error played it’s part in making Buckner the man he eventually was.

The kind of man about whom Mookie Wilson would say, in 2014,

“Bill and I have become very, very close. We’re really the best of friends. As good a friend as you can have. …

“He is a great, great person. We enjoy each other’s company and we have a lot in common, a lot more than you would think. And it’s just been great.”

“He’s a part of history, and that part of history is never gonna leave. It’ll be here long after Bill and I are gone from this earth, so we just kind of embrace it.”

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