If you wear it, they will come

It's not unusual for complete strangers to chat like old chums at Ironman Coeur d'Alene, so when the guy sidled up on my right, leaned on the fence and started a conversation at the intersection of Second and Lakeside, I didn't think much of it.

"Why aren't you out there?" he asked.

Before I could answer, my daughter, Elena - as quick as I am bald - quipped: "He finished five minutes ago."

The guy laughed.

"And look at you, not even sweating," he said.

"What about you?" I asked, glancing at him briefly before catching the second-place men's runner dashing in front of us. "What are you up to?"

"I stopped by to tell you I like your shirt," he said.

That shirt is the pride of my pro sports wardrobe: a navy blue Chicago Cubs T-shirt with the word LEE in red above the number 25 on the back. Derrek Lee is one of my all-time favorite Cubs, a giant of a team leader who won the National League batting crown in 2005, was twice an all-star and three times won the gold glove at first base.

"You a Cubs fan?" I asked, trying to keep the excitement out of my voice. There aren't so many of us left after more than a century of making history in the loss column.

The guy nodded and, reaching over, tapped the top of my shirt.

"That's my name," he said.

Like a Fergie Jenkins fastball, a thought blazed through my brain: What an amazing coincidence. This guy's a Cubs fan and his last name happens to be Lee!

He was smiling now.

"That's my number," he said, tapping the big 25.

I gasped.

"Derrek?" I squeaked. "You're Derrek Lee?"

Derrek Lee laughed and we shook hands. He straightened up to his full height of 6-5, and I was vaguely aware that my mouth was wide open and my knees were shaking.

Somehow I managed to ask what he was doing at Ironman Coeur d'Alene. Lee said his wife is from Spokane and they spend some of their summers on Lake Coeur d'Alene. I looked over at my daughter, who was smiling. I looked back at Derrek Lee, who was grinning. Three and a half decades of interviewing people for a living, and I couldn't think of a damn thing to ask or to say.

Even though I only thought to have my picture taken with him a full 10 minutes after Derrek Lee had walked east on Lakeside, I was ecstatic. I had trouble falling asleep Sunday night and told my wife it must've been the caffeine late in the day. When I did fade off, it was to the violent crash of wood on leather, No. 25 launching a 490-foot blast beyond the desperate grasp of Old Style-emboldened Wrigley Field bleacher bums.

For a couple thousand people each year, Ironman makes dreams comes true. Now I finally get it. Next year I'm wearing my Ernie Banks shirt.