Jan 4, 2025

My Forrest Gumpy Life: Willie Mays' Home Run was Mine!

The earliest incidence of my Gumpy tales happens in 1965 when I was 10. I was with my dad visiting his uncle in St. Louis. 

Because I'd been on a champion baseball team a year before and had a significant interest in baseball, Dad gifted me with a pro game between the St. Louis Cardinals and the San Francisco Giants. He could only afford the cheapest tickets so we sat in the cheap wooden bleachers behind left field. There were very few around us. I of course had brought my mit just in case there was a fly ball.

Which there was. Willie Mays' came up to bat and knocked a home run right into the bleachers beyond left field. Right at me! 

Mays was a hero of mine, as I'd spent several years across the bay and the Giants were my team. Nothing could have been more thrilling!

The ball came flying out of the sky and bounced on an empty bleacher about a dozen rows ahead of us. I grabbed my mit, ready to catch the ball flying right at my face. But there was a guy sitting in front of us a couple rows. He leapt to his feet and caught the fly. End of story. And a little boy's connection with the great Willie Mays.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Man, I love this story, Tim. I was a 10 year old living in St.Louis at that time, playing Little League ball. The Cards were champs in ‘64, and my Dad was helping to build the new Busch Memorial Stadium (now
demolished, sadly). Willie Mays was a personal hero of mine because I played center field too, and one time made an over-the-shoulder catch at the fence which robbed Lee Mueller of a home run. Much like Willie when he did it in ‘’54, and everyone called me Willie Mays for a while. Glory days…

1/04/2025 9:29 AM
Anonymous said...

Not anonymous, it’s me, Tom!

1/04/2025 9:33 AM

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Tim Holmes Studio

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Helena, MT, United States
My inspiration has migrated from traditional materials to working with the field of the psyche as if it were a theater. Many of my recent ideas and inspirations have to do with relationships and how we inhabit the earth and our unique slot in the story of evolution. I wish to use art– or whatever it is I do now– to move the evolution of humanity forward into an increasingly responsive, inclusive and sustainable culture. As globalization flattens peoples into capitalist monoculture I hope to use my art to celebrate historical cultural differences and imagine how we can co-create a rich future together.