when i was a little kid i got bill buckner’s autograph on my baseball mitt

dumb move because i used that glove a lot and it quickly smeared off.

later good ole #22 would agree to sign autographs at this video store near my home

hardly anyone showed up and i got there just as he was leaving.

his handler said, sorry kid, shows over.

and that changed the way i felt about my once favorite Cub.

then, of course, he let a Mookie Wilson ball roll though his legs when he was playing for Boston in the 1986 world series.

that made me like him again because it was such a Cub thing to do.

but most people don’t remember another important ball that billy buck didn’t catch

in 1974 when Hank Aaron was about to break Babe Ruth’s unbreakable home run record

it was shaggy headed bill buckner in left field, he then of the Dodgers.

when the ball sailed over his bushy eyebrows he tried to scale the fence.

Cubs announcer Len Kasper asked him years later if he was trying to catch the most famous dong

“No, I wanted to jump into the bullpen and get the ball!” he said of the valuable piece of history.