The "You Never Know Where Life Will Lead You!" Story

It was an ordinary day.  Reading a story about one of baseball's best 1st basemen, Gil Hodges who played first base for the Los Angles Dodgers during the same time span that I was a big fan of the San Francisco Giants and my hero Willie Mays.  Gil first played for the Brooklyn Dodgers before they moved to Los Angles in 1958, the same year that Willie and the Giants moved to San Francisco.  The story that was in the newspaper recently talked about Gil Hodges and mentioned an old photograph that belonged to a fellow by the name of David Schacker.  Seems that David has a special photograph of himself and Gil Hodges that he has cherished for close to 72 years and recently pulled out of his box of old black and white photographs, since Gil Hodges was recently inducted into Baseball's Hall of Fame.  The tattered black and white photograph shows a young Gil Hodges dressed in a Santa Costume while he made visits at St. Giles Hospital in New York.  The photograph shows Gil shaking hands with 10 year old David at the hospital in 1949.  Today David lives in downtown Toronto and he recently pulled out the photograph to take another look at the photo since Gil was just elected to the Baseball Hall of Fame.  David happened to be in the hospital in December of 1949 recovering from polio when Gil Hodges arrived to visit young patients in the hospital. David recognized Gil immediately, even with his white beard, since David and many others of those receiving treatment for polio watched Gil and his Dodgers team play on the little 12 1/2 inch Stromberg-Carlson TV set at the hospital.  When the boys weren't going through their daily physiotherapy, they were watching Gil and his Brooklyn Dodgers playing on TV.  1949 happened to be the first year he was voted to play in his first All-Star Game so everyone knew who he was when he dropped into the hospital dressed as Santa.  Gil walked right over to David and stuck out his hand as someone took the photograph.  David still remembers how large Gil's hand was when he stuck out his hand to shake hands with him.  Hey, this was a man who was an All-Star and had driven in 115 runs and knocked out 170 hits the year before who was standing next to his hospital bed.  Wasn't too many months before that David was a gifted tennis player who was smacking balls from the baseline, buy was now going through physical-therapy due to his polio.  David Schacker made those months and months of therapy a bit easier by watching baseball games and his favorite, Gil Hodges.  Gil was just at the start of his career, but most of the boys that watched him on TV knew he was going to be something special.  Hodges felt a personal responsibility to his community to make visits to those that were struggling.  Hodges also donated money to many places in the community.  David's polio made him have to give up tennis and begin a new hobby of writing.  He eventually became the sports editor for his high school newspaper and later attended Cornell University.  

Gil Hodges in his Santa outfit shaking hands with David.

He realizes that his life might have been completely different had he not had polio, but he might have never met his hero Gil Hodges had it been different.  Life's funny.  It takes us in different directions than we might have suspected, but still gives us many memorable moments.  It was another extraordinary day in the life of an ordinary guy.