Of Willie McCovey, Box Seats and Little Old Ladies

This story is true. Thanksgiving Day is as good time as any to tell it.

If you lived in San Francisco and loved baseball, you loved Willie McCovey.

It was that simple. Willie Mays was the greatest player in Giants history but McCovey was the most popular. End of discussion. 

So in 1980, when the Giants announced a month ahead of time that McCovey would retire at the All-Star break, everybody naturally wanted to be at his final game at Candlestick Park.

That was going to be Thursday afternoon, July 3. With the Giants hopelessly out of contention, that game normally would draw 5,000-7,000 fans. But with McCovey playing for the last time, 40,000 to 50,000 were expected.

The smart person would have bought tickets way ahead of time. We did not.

Your Honor, it happened like this.

Paul Feasby, one of my buddies from the University of San Francisco and the biggest of all McCovey fans, insisted he would get tickets well before the big day. Promised, promised and promised some more.

Big mistake. We had learned long ago that I and I alone should get the tickets. Feasby was only good at smuggling beer into Candlestick Park, which wasn't hard because the place was freezing all the time and we all had to wear Arctic gear anyway. Hey, we were in college, okay?

I digress. The big day comes and Feasby still hasn't bought tickets and 40,000 are headed to the park. It may be McCovey's last game but we're going to watch it from deep right-center.

Not to worry, Feasby says. We'll get there early. We'll pick you up early at work and still get good tickets.

Yeah right. Game is at one. I'm working downtown at Smith Novelty Co., a wholesaler with a stranglehold on postcards and every possible tourist trinket sold in The City. Feasby and Joe Schmidt pick me up just after noon. After all this, only three of us are going.

We get to The 'Stick around 12:30. Traffic is backed up and lines to the ticket windows are ten deep. I tell Schmidt to let me out and I'll get tickets while they park the car.

Their last instructions were to get seats in the sun, which at Candlestick meant right field.

Yeah right. I'm fuming as I get in line, knowing only that $6 lower box seats in the infield are out of the question.

Also principles were in danger of being violated. It is an article of faith that if I go to a sporting event, I have to be in my seat by the Star-Spangled Banner.

Then she appears out of nowhere. The quintessential, stereotypical little old lady. Sweet, smiling, glasses perched on her nose. Right out of Norman Rockwell. Your grandmother.

"Does anybody need tickets?" she asks sweetly.

People look at her like she's some cutthroat scalper. I'm looking at the tickets she's holding out. All I know is they are brown-colored in a single-digit section. That meant box seats behind home plate.

"Do you have three?" I ask quickly while others hesitate.

"No they're not free!" she snaps indignantly. "I paid for them."

"NO!" I try again loud and clear, holding up the requisite amount of fingers. "Do you have THREE!"

"Yes," she says, relieved.

I thrust a $20 bill to her.

"I don't have change," she says

"I don't NEED change," I plead.

"Are you sure?" she said, feeling bad she was cheating me.

"Yes!"

She hands me the tickets. Section 4, just to the left of home plate, ten rows back.

The seats weren't in the sun. But we were in our seats by the time the organist was going off on the Rocket's Red Glare. Feasby went nuts. He bought the beer for the rest of the game. Of course he worked at a law firm so he could afford it more than a postcard pusher.

Another group of guys bought tickets from the lady. Turns out a retirement home had bought a big chunk of tickets but many backed out because of the unexpected big crowd.

"Can you believe it?" the guy said. "Everybody else in line was looking at her like she was nuts."

The Giants won. McCovey had the game-winning hit.

And at some point during the game - I swear to God - the lady gave me my $2 in change.

Happy Thanksgiving to all.