As humans, we have a tendency to claim perfect memory when recalling important events. JFK, man on the moon, 9/11, the birth of a child. These are things all of us say we can remember with precise accuracy. Numerous psychological studies have shown that we give our ability to recall such tremendous events a bit too much credit. In spite of this, everyone has their story.

Mine took place on April 23, 2010 and I have my terrible style to thank for it.

A little after 3pm, my empty stomach was beginning to get on my nerves. Finals were just around the corner and I was camped out in the business school library. Tired of staring at corporate finance and managerial accounting notes, I decided to take a quick break and grab some food. I drove around Durham searching for the perfect cure for my hunger. Perhaps I could get some chicken and biscuits from Bojangles’ or maybe I could grab a big, juicy burger from Cookout. Though tempting, I was on a mission at that point in my life to lose the baby fat I’d been lugging around for 23 years. Healthy, fresh food was the final verdict. On to Kroger Supermarket, I went.

That day, I was dressed in one of my favorite Giants pieces: their sleek looking grey away jersey with “San Francisco” strewn across the chest (and yes, I had the hat to go with it). I walked into Kroger, grabbed a cart and made haste. I knew what I wanted and, with finals looming over my head, I had no time to lollygag.

Zipping in and out of the various aisles, I was reaching peak levels of healthy-food-buying efficiency. A few salad ingredients here, some grilled chicken there, I was on pace to be done in less than 10 minutes. Nothing could get in my wa —

“Excuse me,” a voice suddenly cried, emanating from somewhere in the produce section. “Are you a fan of the San Francisco Giants?”

After looking around for the source of this question, I finally spotted a very short woman walking towards me. She had bleached-blonde hair, was carrying a purse that would make my female classmates jealous and spoke with a southern twang I had grown to love over the years.

“Are you a fan of the Giants?” she asked me once again.

“Ma’am, next to my family and friends, the Giants are the most important thing in my life,” I replied, taking a mental note of how witty my response sounded (in hindsight, it wasn’t that witty).

“My ex-husband played for them back in the late sixties and early seventies,” she said.

At first, I was very skeptical of this woman. For crying out loud, nobody in North Carolina even cares about the Giants, so how on Earth could I believe someone from there claiming to have been married to a former player? Are you sure he didn’t play for one of their Minor League affiliate clubs like, oh I don’t know, the San Jose Giants?

These were some of the many thoughts that raced through my head, but I decided to humor her.

“Oh wow, really?” I mustered, while laughter and doubt consumed my mind. “What did he play?”

“He was an outfielder,” she quickly replied. “He played with some of the greats — he was even Willie Mays’ backup at one point. I went to a lot of games.”

“Really, lady? He played with Willie Mays, the ‘Say Hey Kid’? You must be mad. Please let me know what drug you’re on, so I can take some myself and understand what it’s like to be as disconnected from reality as you are. I’m trying to buy some groceries, rush back to the library and study for a test I’m probably going to fail. Please let me be.”

For as long as I live, I will forever be grateful to my younger self for not saying that. Instead, I played it safe and continued along with her.

“Outfield, huh? Very cool. What’s his name?”

“Bob Taylor,” she said. “He wasn’t a superstar, but he played in the big leagues and that’s all that matters. When we got divorced, I got a lot of his old stuff. I’m looking to sell some of it and it’s actually in my car. My name’s Gloria, by the way.”

Bob Taylor in 1970. Image courtesy of MassLive.com

I still wasn’t buying “Gloria’s” story, but I politely nodded along.

“I used to go to all of the home games and even some of the ones on the road,” she continued. “I miss Candlestick. God, that was a fun place. Cold as hell, but fun. I haven’t been to the new park yet.”

Now she was talking about a stadium the Giants hadn’t played in for over a decade. My ears started to perk up — she was beginning to get my attention. But, before I could reminisce on old Candlestick with her, someone else joined our conversation.

“Oh no, you’re not talking about the Giants again,” a mysterious third voice suddenly said from Kroger-parts-unknown.

“Listen, I see this big boy walking around with a Giants hat and shirt on, so I’m gonna talk to him,” Gloria snapped. “Can you believe there’s a Giants fan all the way out here in Durham? Of all places!”

“Yes, of all places,” I thought.

“Get the keys out of my purse and show him the key ring,” Gloria ordered the woman, who I eventually found out was her sister.

Gloria’s sister took out their keys and, sure enough, they were attached to a shiny, San Francisco Giants key ring. Suddenly, I began to wonder if Gloria’s story was not, in fact, a load of bull. Maybe, just maybe, her ex really did play for the Giants.

“You know, Bob was in the lineup the day Willie got his 2,999th hit,” Gloria (who, by the way, I was really beginning to like) proudly announced. “After he hit it, Bob ran onto the field and grabbed the bat. He ruined it by writing ‘2,999th hit’ on it, but you wouldn’t want to buy it from me, would you? I have it in my car.”

For the uninitiated, the 3,000 career hits milestone is one of the most coveted in the sport. Doing so practically guarantees one’s admission into the Hall of Fame. To have a piece of memorabilia associated with the hit right before #3,000 would still be incredibly valuable.

After collecting my thoughts, I sadly had to turn down Gloria’s offer.

“I’d love to buy it, but I’m just a poor college student. I can’t afford it. You should sell it to a collector or take it to an auction house.”

“Well, how about you come out to my car and at least take a look at it,” she insisted.

So, I abandoned my cart, bid a temporary adieu to her sister and followed Gloria out to her car. My heart was now beginning to race in anticipation. I really hoped she was telling me the truth.

We walked outside and eventually made it to her car, a shining silver Jaguar. Gloria pulled out her Giants key ring and proceeded to pop the trunk. As I leaned over, I began to feel like an explorer gazing upon El Dorado. Scattered around her trunk was a treasure trove of old gloves, baseballs, bats, programs and even a few scorecards. She laughed — probably because she could sense how blown away I was — and then proceeded to wade through her veritable gold mine. After a brief struggle, Gloria pulled out something very long wrapped in a trash bag. She ripped the bag open and pulled it out.

Excalibur.

I have seen many baseball bats in my life, but there was something different about this one.

“Here,” she said. “Want to hold it?”

Regardless of the true story behind this bat, it will forever remain one of my most cherished possessions.

After a moment of reverent hesitation, I finally took it from her. I figured it was about 35–36 inches long and it felt like it weighed almost as much in ounces. By modern day standards, this bat was enormous (nowadays, batters prefer to go with something much lighter to help them with their bat speed). Beyond that, the barrel was branded with the famous “Louisville Slugger” logo and the handle was smothered in pine tar. It was truly a thing of beauty.

“Look closer,” Gloria then said, snapping me out of my temporary trance. “See what it says?”

Sure enough, I rotated the bat around and inspected further down the barrel. Then, I saw it. The hairs on my arm stood, a shiver went down my spine and my eyes even got a little wet. Engraved were the four most famous letters in Giants history: “MAYS.” In my hands was a bat used by arguably the greatest human being to ever play baseball. Next to his name? “Willie Mays got his 2,999th hit with this bat,” written in jet black Sharpie. Not the best look, but I didn’t care.

I couldn’t believe it. I was standing in the parking lot of a Kroger Supermarket in the middle of Durham, North Carolina with a perfect stranger and a bat used by Willie Mays was in my hands. All along, Gloria had been telling me the truth.

Gloria had now grown silent. I’m sure she was watching my face and I’m even surer that my already white complexion had become a bit whiter while holding those 30-some-odd ounces of maple wood.

“Take it,” she said.

At first, I was speechless.

“I — I can’t take this,” I stuttered. “This is worth too much.”

“I’m old and money doesn’t mean much to me,” she countered. “I don’t care about any of these things and it seems like this bat means a lot to you.”

She was right. The bat did mean a lot to me. In fact, it meant the world to me. We politely argued back and forth over who was going to keep the bat, but I eventually relented.

“Just promise me you’ll never sell it.”

I started laughing. There was no chance in Hell I’d sell this bat.

“This will be mine until I die.”

We spoke for a few more minutes before she had to go back inside and finish shopping with her sister. For years, she had been an elementary school teacher in Massachusetts, but had recently moved to Durham to help her sister take care of her sick husband. According to her, I was the first person she had come across in Durham who wore anything supporting the Giants. She went on about how much she loved them — probably deeper than I do — and how seeing my terrible choice in fashion had brought back some fond memories of her past.

I gave Gloria a big hug and begged her for her address so that I could at least send her some flowers. She scribbled it down on a piece of paper, slammed the trunk of her car shut and then slowly walked back inside.

That was the last time I ever saw her.