Fans from near and far gather to honor No. 44
Bernadette Bray was such a Willie McCovey fan she once left her mom’s house in South San Francisco as a Giants game began and walked to Candlestick Park to see him play. She strode through Brisbane and arrived in the fifth inning.
Clearly, Bray was not going to let the miles between her current San Joaquin County home and AT&T Park deter her from attending Thursday’s celebration of life for McCovey.
“I had to be here,” said Bray, 61. “I live in Tracy and left the house at 7:30 a.m. I didn’t get here until 10:30. I drove three hours.”
After the 90-minute remembrance, she clutched the heart-shaped “44” sign she created and said, “I’m blessed to be here.”
The crowd that sat in the lower deck was not large. Those who could get away from work saw it as a necessary pilgrimage.
“Willie’s persona is chiseled in our collective souls.” Larry Baer, Giants President and CEO, pointing out the wreath that the team encircled around McCovey’s retired number down the left-field line
played alongside a far more famous Willie — Mays, the greatest player in the game — McCovey was in a different category. The most beloved San Francisco Giant ever.
“Willie got here in 1959, and he never left,” Baer said.
The fans in the stands were not Millennials. They were not Buster Posey-minted fans. They were mostly gray haired and bursting with memories. They stood in spontaneous ovations when Mays arrived in a golf cart, when Felipe Alou appeared. Plenty probably remember McCovey arriving in 1959. Some even might have met him at the grocery store, or in North Beach listening to jazz.
When someone is so wedded to a place, and so beloved, there are stories. And just as readers shared their personal memories, the speakers Thursday shared their memories. Gaylord Perry and Felipe Alou and Orlando Cepeda told stories. There were laughs and smiles. And tears. Mike Krukow, a two-time winner of the Willie Mac award, was the last to speak. He brought up the other Willie Mac award winners who were in the audience to the podium: Dave Dravecky, Tiny Felder, Nick Hundley, Jack Clark, Marvin Benard, Shawon Dunston and Posey.
Krukow recounted a funny story about how McCovey came to the plate with the bases loaded against him, when he pitched for the Cubs, and hit what would have been Willie’s 19th career grand slam. The ball appeared fair to Krukow, but it was ruled foul. Krukow then struck out McCovey. For the rest of his life, McCovey called Krukow No. 19.
As a Giants broadcaster, Krukow saw McCovey almost every day at the ballpark and he marveled at how, despite his discomfort and inability to get around, McCovey never complained. Krukow, who is suffering from a degenerative disease, uses a cane and can’t get to certain ballparks anymore, paused for several moments, choking back tears.
“I want,” he finally said, “to be like him.”
At one point, the fog moved in and covered the field at AT&T Park. Despite the sunshine most everywhere else Thursday afternoon, it was fitting. After all, McCovey tamed the winds and fog of Candlestick Park as well as anyone in history ever did.
Across the stretch of water, a statue of McCovey stands. The plaque bears his gaudy numbers. As Joe Amalfitano said, “We’re in a business that’s all about numbers. But there’s a pulse and heart that go with those numbers.”
Whatever the Giants do in the future with numbers and analytics, McCovey stands across the cove to remind them of what those numbers really represent.
The tribute ended with images of McCovey coming out for a curtain call in one his final days with the Giants. The crowd cheered his name for minutes. He came out of the dugout, waved his hat to the crowd and disappeared back into the depths of Candlestick Park.
The ballpark doesn’t exist anymore, except in our memories. McCovey will always live in our memories.
The day closed with, of course, Tony Bennett singing, “I left my heart in San Francisco.” Never had the standard been more appropriate.
McCovey gave his heart to San Francisco. And he’s taken a little of ours with him.