Andy Young: Still living the dream(s)

By Andy Young

Traffic, as it inevitably does on weekday mornings, slowed to a crawl on the Merritt Parkway.

My first reaction: annoyance. The earlier-than-usual delay meant I’d be late for school.

Fuming because I was boxed into the right lane directly behind a bus full of schoolchildren, I spent the next 10 minutes inching along at five miles per hour. Finally, after crawling around a curve at a snail’s pace, I saw the bottleneck’s cause.

A sad-looking man was standing beside a car with steam billowing from beneath its hood. Irritated, I wondered why anyone would take such poor care of his mode of transportation. But I also couldn’t help noticing no one was stopping to help him, even though he had his thumb out. Feeling more empathetic than angry, I spontaneously decided to play Good Samaritan by picking him up and taking him to the nearest service station, even though doing so would make me even tardier for work.

But as I drew closer, I saw that the stranded man was none other than Willie Mays, who is considered by many to be the greatest baseball player the game has ever seen. Reassessing the situation, I realized the universe had arranged this meeting because Willie and I were destined to become friends. The selfless act I was about to perform on his behalf was no doubt arranged by some higher power to help accelerate that process.

Except … the school bus picked him up first! Not only that, but traffic remained snarled for another ten or so miles, which meant that not only was I late for school, I had to continue following that immense yellow vehicle, helplessly watching Willie Mays smile beautifically as he handed out autographs and tips on playing center field to every kid who asked.

I was still seething when it occurred to me that:

A) Buses aren’t allowed on the Merritt Parkway

B) I haven’t lived in Connecticut for three decades

C) Willie Mays died over a year ago; and

D) My alarm was going off, and my dream of meeting baseball’s best center fielder had been just that: a dream.

This was by no means my first such nocturnal imagining. Some years ago, I scored from first base on a home run by my Chicago Cub teammate Gordie Howe at Wrigley Field, even though in reality Howe was his generation’s greatest ice hockey player. Then a few months ago I awoke from a vivid dream of Montreal Canadiens center Jean Beliveau taking me on a tour of Biddeford in his monster truck.

Just last week I found myself grabbing a rebound in a college basketball game, and firing an outlet pass to my teammate Larry Dierker, a former pitcher for (and manager of) the Houston Astros. We broke downcourt two-on-one against a lone but familiar-looking defender. Dierker tried to get the ball back to me, but LeBron James’s defense was so effective that Larry, out of sheer frustration, fired the basketball as hard as he could, trying to ricochet it off LeBron’s hip and out of bounds. Unfortunately, it deflected off me before going over the sideline. “Larry!” I yelled. “Does my hip really look like LeBron James’s hip?”

We all smiled; it was a friendly game, apparently. But as I slowly regained contact with reality, I recalled that neither Larry or LeBron had ever played college basketball. And as I shook loose the last of the cobwebs, I reluctantly remembered that I definitely hadn’t either.

So, what do all these bizarre overnight athletically themed fantasies mean? Don’t ask me. I don’t analyze ‘em; I just dream ‘em. <