I reached out to another ex-Pirates pitcher Tuesday night, and sure enough, 96-year-old ElRoy Face also had a Mays story at the ready.

"I remember we were leading by three runs in the ninth inning one time when Mays came up," Face recalled. "Hank Foiles was my catcher and my roommate. Mays hits a home run. I called (Foiles) out and said, 'What happened?' He said, 'Roomie, he hadn't had a hit. I told him what was coming.' "

Just because he was Willie Mays?

"Yeah, probably," Face said.

Longtime Penguins broadcaster Paul Steigerwald got this text from a buddy Tuesday night: "Here's the coolest thing I've ever heard about Willie Mays. I can't remember the announcer, but Mays hit a triple in the gap and the guy said, 'The only man that could have caught that ball hit it.' "

I have a Willie Mays story, too, and though the mental snapshot is clear as day, I called my 93-year-old, Brooklyn-born father Tuesday to check notes. We both remembered it was around 1975, so I would have been 9 or 10. Mays would have been two years into retirement. We were driving on a traffic-laden highway in Queens, N.Y., near Shea Stadium when we came upon a pink Cadillac with the license plate "Say Hey."

"That's Willie Mays," my dad said.

"No it's not," I said from the back seat.

"Sure it is," he said. "They called him the 'Say Hey Kid.' That's him."

With that, traffic having slowed to a crawl, we pulled up next to his car. I rolled down the window (we had to do it manually in those days) and looked over. His window was already down. I shouted, "Hi, Willie!"

He didn't say anything back, but his acknowledgment — a quick and sure wave of his left hand from the front seat of that pink Cadillac — was so cool, so perfect, so unforgettable. And I knew that for the rest of my life, I could say it:

I met Willie Mays.

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