The handle should pretty much give it away. The story? If I can brush the cobwebs off an old book in the back of my memory it was 1962 (could have been '63 I guess) and at 13 years old I'd gotten the first ok (with a few be carefuls) from my parents to venture from New Jersey into New York City without an adult. The Cincinnati Redlegs were in to play the Mets at the old Polo Grounds for a day game. As a Yankee hater who's greatest baseball thrill so far had been Mazeroski's World Series home run I was ecstatic that National League baseball had returned to New York. My friend (a Yankee fan) and I got there super early. Our tickets were on the Cincy side and the ushers didn't object to us walking down to the unoccupied field seats and getting a close up view of the Red players warming up and such. Out of the clear blue Vada Pinson comes strolling over to us and chats us up for what was probably a minute or two - it seemed like a half an hour to us. It was a larger than life experience and made an instant lifelong fan out of me. Even many years later I was saddened when he passed at such a young age. He and Frank Robby are chucking the ball around again somewhere.
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