Jerry McDonald: Why the one and only time I talked with Willie Mays was so special

The following year, Mays even played in the World Series for the Mets against the A’s in Oakland at age 42 in what would be his last act as a big league player.

Time passed, and I got into the media business. The first major league game I ever covered was an A’s game in 1982 when Rickey Henderson was pursuing the major league stolen base record. They were playing the Angels, Henderson got thrown out and Reggie Jackson hit a home run for the Angels.

I remember being nervous about being in the right place at the right time more so than being in the presence of big leaguers. Covered a lot of different sports at different levels and figured I was immune to being spellbound.

That changed in 1993. One of our beat writers had changed jobs, and our Giants writer was moving over to cover the A’s.

I’d been a backup writer for both the A’s and Giants and was covering college sports. I was sent to spring training in Arizona to cover the Giants until we had the beat sorted out, and it happened to be the same year Dusty Baker was hired as manager and Barry Bonds had been signed as a free agent.

I’d heard stories that Bonds could be difficult, but imagined that his reporting day would take a “happy days are here again” tone now that he was returning to San Francisco where his father was a coach and Mays, his Godfather, was an icon.

Not even close. Bonds wore a scowl, gave short answers and took offense to even innocuous questions.

The following day, the beat writers were in the clubhouse and were informed Willie Mays would be available for questions.

It was damage control, pure and simple, and veteran scribes noted it wasn’t as if Mays had the best relationship with reporters.

But it was still Willie Mays, and there I was, sitting on a bench in a clubhouse right in front of him as he explained Bonds’ attitude and that it was going to take some time to get to know him. I’m not sure how long he talked, it was probably 10 minutes or so, but he spun some yarns in his high-pitched voice and dropped a lot of swear words.

I thought about Ken Henderson. Those trips across the San Mateo Bridge with my dad. He was so proud of what I did, always with a stack of papers for clients in his tax business to show off the byline of our shared first and last name.

But I always kept a professional distance in that I didn’t call him often with who I was talking to and what we were talking about until he died in 2008. Except once.

After that day in Arizona, I called him and said, ‘Dad, you’re not going to believe this. I just talked with Willie Mays.’ ”

It wasn’t entirely the truth. I’m not sure if I contributed a word to the interview session. But it was close enough. It was Willie Mays, I was there, and I got to tell my dad about it.

Pretty cool.