Dr. Anthony Fauci is not my favorite 80-year-old. In fact, he’s not even an 80-year-old, yet.
The internationally respected physician, immunologist, and unreconstructed truth-teller will turn 80 on Christmas Eve. So, my brother, Jim, is six months ahead of him in age.
Jim is also slightly ahead of Fauci — whom I greatly admire and support — on my list of favorite 80-year-olds, or those who soon will be, who have unusually high energy levels and unrelenting commitments to making a difference in the world.
For their age, they both get a lot done, in different ways at different levels.
They also share notable — if not exemplary — first-pitch experiences as celebrity hurlers at baseball games.
Dr. Fauci’s pitch is better known, of course, and more embarrassing. His toss — far wide and far short of home plate — prior to the Washington Nationals-New York Yankees game was, well, abysmal.
And that comes from a big fan.
But Fauci’s infamous lob was also a lift for my brother Jim, who had his own struggles with a first-pitch years ago when South Dakota State University was playing the University of Minnesota at Sioux Falls Stadium.
That was back when SDSU was just breaking into D-1 ball. And Jim was there, of course, as he is for just about any event involving SDSU or Sioux Falls, making himself available to help in any way, for anyone.
But he wasn’t planning on pitching. Not that. No. Heck no!
“They said, ‘Hey Jim, we need a celebrity to throw out the first pitch,’” Jim recalls. “And I said, ‘OK, I’ll see who I can find.’ And they said, ‘No, we mean you.’ And I said, ‘Oh Lord, what am I going to do now?’”
First thing he did was call former multi-sport-star athlete and SDSU football player Todd Yackley of Onida, son of Jim’s long-time buddy Bob Yackley, himself a former SDSU basketball player. The Yackleys are especially good resources for either ag stuff or sports stuff. Jim went to the right place.
“I told Todd what I had to do and asked him for advice,” Jim says. “He thought about it for a minute and finally said, ‘Give ‘em the heater, Ricky!’”
Ah, give ‘em the heater! The reference was from the 1989 movie, “Major League,” in which James Gammon, the actor playing a concocted Cleveland Indians manager Lou Brown in the movie, encourages Ricky “Wild Thing” Vaughn (Charlie Sheen) to “forget about the curveball, Ricky. Give ‘em the heater.”
Which means, throw the fastball, hard.
Pretty good advice. And Jim, who in my recollection never actually played organized baseball at any level, followed it as best he could. Which was not, well, the best anyone could. He bounced the ball short of home plate.
And the reaction was immediate. From Todd Yackley.
“I got a call from Todd right away,” Jim says. “And he said, ‘Geez, you embarrassed us. I’m out here on the tractor disking, and I’ve already had two calls about that pitch! How many times did it bounce? One guy said it was once; another guy said it was twice.’”
Jim didn’t keep count. Things were kind of a blur for him out there on the mound.
And, one bounce or two, it turned out Jim didn’t have a heater to give. He’s a giving person. But he couldn’t give that. Even so, the ball bounced in front of the plate, so the catcher didn’t have to go chase it down like the Nationals player did with Fauci’s runaway dribbler.
So, with his pitiful first pitch last month in Nationals Park, Dr. Anthony Fauci gave a gift to a guy of his vintage way out here in South Dakota.
Or as Jim puts it, “After watching Fauci’s pitch, I felt a lot better about mine.”
And, really, aren’t physicians supposed to make us feel better?
Good job, Dr. Fauci!
