MOMENTS, MEMORIES and MADNESS with STEVE CAMERON: The impressionable Panama hat, and a final chapter completed

It had become a signature item.

A Panama hat.

I wore one of the things for the better part of four decades as a sports journalist — for two reasons.

It definitely fit my casual dress and cigar-smoking, let’s-hang-by-the-pool persona.

There also was a little method in the madness, too: Covering professional sports, you’re going to meet hundreds of athletes and assorted administrators just a few times each, so any normal reporter or columnist would be easy to forget in that kind of crowd.

But a guy with a cigar and a Panama hat?

You tend to make an impression, without even saying anything meaningful.

Or perhaps never speaking at all.

EXAMPLE…

I interviewed Pittsburgh Steelers Hall of Fame receiver Lynn Swann after a playoff game in the 1970s.

Somewhere in that conversation, I mentioned that we actually grew up in the same town — Millbrae, a suburb about 14 miles south of downtown San Francisco.

Lynn’s dad, in fact, was Millbrae’s postmaster.

Now fast forward a couple of years to a mob scene in the Steelers’ locker room after a Super Bowl victory.

Normally, you couldn’t pick out your grandmother is that mass of humanity, but by a quirk of luck, Swann saw my Panama, surprisingly recalled who would wear such a thing and shouted over the din.

“Homie! Yo, homie!”

It was a fun greeting.

Very cool.

ANYHOW, the hat almost began to have a career of its own.

Coaches and managers who probably couldn’t remember my name often DID have a vague recollection of the guy in a Panama, and sometimes they’d even know where I worked.

Players who did know me personally — or at least professionally — also could pick me out of a crowd in any group interview situation.

(Hang on to that bit of info for a few minutes, OK?)

I admit that wasn’t why I’d started wearing a Panama, but it was a pretty good reason to KEEP one on my noggin.

Eventually, I started getting them as gifts, and buying truly authentic hats from places all over the world.

The only downside I can recall was that big ol’ hats are not that comfortable on planes, so fairly often my hat was in danger of being crushed among assorted other stuff in the overhead bin.

It was a small price to pay for that extra bit of identity — especially in a business where being known could, once in a while, become very helpful, indeed.

NOW WE switch our focus to Sept. 30, 1992.

I’d spent most of that summer cooped up in a storeroom (converted to a makeshift office) adjacent to the press box at Kauffman Stadium in Kansas City.

The Royals were coming up on their 25th anniversary, and had kindly hired me to write a commemorative coffee table book.

Lots of photos from the club’s birth in 1969, but also 40,000 words.

But we had a problem.

One chapter near the front of book would be devoted entirely to future Hall of Famer George Brett.

The issue causing some anxiety was that George was approaching historic hit No. 3,000.

As the season wound down to a point where only six games remained — three in Anaheim, then three more at home against Minnesota — we couldn’t lock up the book until we knew if George had reached the milestone, or the chapter would have to note that he would need a handful of hits the following season.

No prizes for guessing which we preferred.

BRETT had injured his right shoulder pretty severely the week before the Royals traveled to Anaheim, and as everyone waited for him to make history …

He could barely lift a bat, let alone swing one.

So, he simply sat and watched the first two games against the Angels, only taking time for a trip to UCLA’s medical center for a cortisone shot.

On Wednesday before the final game, I had lunch with George and his wife, Leslie, at the team hotel.

“I won’t know what I can do until game time,” he said. “Right now, it just hurts.

“Maybe I can play and try to scratch out one hit some way, so then I’d have a day off and three games at home.”

George was sitting at 2,996 hits, so his theory was simple — one bloop or something in Anaheim (he had decided he would not try bunting), thus leaving him in the spot where he needed one hit per game in the final homestand against the Twins.

ON THAT Wednesday night, George was facing right-hander Julio Valera, a journeyman who was having a pretty decent year — he’d finish with 30 appearances (28 starts) and an ERA of 3.73, which is very respectable in a league with the designated hitter.

In his first at-bat, the scenario Brett imagined played out perfectly, as he blooped a double to left.

Suddenly he was at 2,997.

Next at-bat, a sharp single to center — 2,998 — and all the media who’d come from Kansas City, and thus had watched all or most of Brett’s career, made statements like, “We’ve seen this movie. This is gonna be a done deal tonight.”

Sure enough, Brett singled again in the fifth inning, leaving him one hit shy of the magic 3,000.

Most of us who knew George now were scurrying around, interviewing Leslie, or the rest of his family and those countless friends from his native Southern California who had shown up to root him on.

In the top of the seventh, the Angels brought in a lefty to face Brett, who would be leading off.

But as Kansas City Star columnist Gib Twyman said, “They could bring in Sandy Koufax in his prime right now, and it wouldn’t matter.”

IT DIDN’T.

Left-hander Tim Fortugno’s first pitch to Brett was hit like a rocket into the general vicinity of second baseman Ken Oberkfell, who had to duck for his life when the ball hopped viciously and shot out into right field.

That was it.

THREE THOUSAND!

George Howard Brett had become the 17th player in major league history to reach that number, and it seemed like pure magic.

“I was sure I could play,” Brett later told reporters, “if I didn’t swing any harder than before the game, and I didn’t.

“After 19 years, I finally figured out I didn’t have to swing hard to get hits.”

The tiny crowd of 17,336 (most fans had assumed Brett couldn’t possibly get four hits that night) roared with appreciation.

There were congratulations all around.

George waved to every section of the stands, even as he was mobbed by his teammates and some of the Angels.

It was goose-bump time.

The fans wanted more, and George obliged.

Those of us who knew him understood something else …

Brett was very, very relieved to have the chase done, without any worry or drama of waiting for the start of 1993, especially with his aching shoulder.

AFTER the game, the Angels — who also had been caught by surprise — hustled to set up a press conference in what essentially was an equipment area under the stands.

A table was arranged for George, with rows of chairs kind of stuffed into the allowable space.

I got down there late, because I was still talking to some of George’s longtime pals.

The best I could do was find a chair in the middle of a back row, lost among the scrum of Kansas City and Los Angeles-area media types — including camera people who will knock your head off and never have a qualm about it.

I remember thinking: Damn, I wanted to be closer to George at this moment, especially after preparing two entire chapter versions for that coffee table item.

It took quite a while, but finally George appeared — in the shirt he’d worn under his uniform, and carrying a cold beer.

MEANWHILE, I was ducking and weaving, trying to see what was going on through the sea of heads in front of me.

I needn’t have worried.

Brett at last set the beer down, took a long look at the crowd of assembled media, and looked straight at me, back there in my trusty Panama hat.

The first thing he said, this newly minted member of the exclusive 3,000-hit club, was…

“Well, Steve, the book’s finished!”

Almost no one in the crowd had any idea what George meant, which was funny.

I hollered back: “The publisher thanks you.”

It was maybe the most fun moment during my long trail as a journalist.

And yes, Brett confirmed later that seeing my Panama hat in the crowd had made it possible.

I won’t fib, either.

I loved that night almost as much as George Brett did.

Email: scameron@cdapress.com

Steve Cameron’s “Cheap Seats” columns appear in The Press on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays. “Moments, Memories and Madness,” his reminiscences from several decades as a sports journalist, runs each Sunday.

Steve also writes Zags Tracker, a commentary on Gonzaga basketball, once per month during the offseason.