When I was a little kid, Willie Mays was my idol, mainly because I loved playing centerfield and he suddenly ended up on my hometown Mets. My dad would always regale us with tales of the good ole days when Say Hey was a NY Giant. Like so many other New Yorkers from his generation, after California stole our NL teams away, he refused to ever attend another baseball game. So with me (and a huge number of people), baseball was an incredible generational link between father and son. That's why Willie Mays will always remain that way in my heart, and I love grabbing his cards when I can. But as I grew up and kept hearing what an angry, unpleasant guy he was, I decided that I would never go see him in person at a signing event, and it has allowed me to keep my glorified, internal opinion of him intact.
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