May 6 was always a special day when I was growing up because it was Willie Mays' birthday. (Today the greatest baseball player who ever lived turns 77.)

In Phillipsburg, NJ, in the 1960s you were either a Yankees fan or a Phillies fan (like my parents, my brothers). I was the exception: a diehard San Francisco Giants fan.

The reason was number 24, the "Say Hey" kid. What was amazing about Mays, even back in those days, was his all-roundedness: he could field, he could steal bases (unlike a certain Yankee slugger), he could hit for power, he could hit for percentage. Whenever he stepped up to the plate, or got on base, or zeroed in on a fly ball, you felt the energy level rise.

One September, perhaps in 7th grade, I returned to school and saw a postcard on a girl's desk of Candlestick Park, where my beloved Giants played. Her family had taken her to San Francisco for vacation. I, as every summer, had been to the Jersey shore. I had never envied someone so much. The idea of going to San Francisco - the city of cable cars, Rice-a- Roni, Willie Mays - was something I could hardly fathom.

So I grew up longing for someplace else. I went to Europe five times before I ever saw California, and when I finally visited the city on the bay, in 1985, Willie Mays was long retired. You didn't dare ask for Rice-a-Roni. I had returned to the faith and become a Phillies fan. But I walked the hills with an almost uncontrollable feeling of joy, disbelief, and gratitude. The emotions you want on every journey.