MOMENTS, MEMORIES and MADNESS with STEVE CAMERON: When those villains growing up become your friends later in life

There is a very unique thing about this gig.

If you fall into sports journalism when you’re fairly young, you discover there’s a good chance that — say, in the first decade or so — you may meet your heroes.

And villains.

That is, the athletes you applauded and admired when you were still just a fan and, yep, those who gave you nightmares.

It’s quite a shock to come face to face with someone whose deeds gave you absolute thrills — and likewise to approach a player that was “the enemy” for as far back as you have any memory.

Even more stunning, perhaps, is that the ones for whom you yelled support until you were hoarse, the ones whose bubble-gum cards you saved and maybe even encased in plastic…

They sometimes turn out to be quite different in person.

Ditto those characters on the other teams that you wished would fail miserably.

AS A Bay Area kid, I was in love with the San Francisco Giants.

Willie Mays, Willie McCovey, Orlando Cepeda, Juan Marichal.

Every one of them a Hall of Famer.

And of course, I loathed the Los Angeles Dodgers.

In fact, it was the same for every team from Southern California.

It was in my DNA.

My dad and his partner were the San Francisco 49ers’ first accountants when the franchise was formed in 1946 — so, naturally, the L.A. Rams all played dirty and got away with endless penalties that were never called.

As for the Giants and Dodgers, they were at each other’s throats from their days back in New York and Brooklyn.

The animosity simply was transplanted to the West Coast.

The Dodgers were incensed one Sunday afternoon when Marichal tried to clobber catcher Johnny Roseboro with a bat — but in Juan’s defense, Roseboro had nicked his ear on a throw back to the mound.

You can’t tell me that wasn’t deliberate.

He could have killed Marichal.

No, in fact, I don’t want to hear the Dodgers’ side of that story.

SO, NOW, out of all the people I cheered and jeered as a kid in high school and college…

Who would you guess became my very good friend later in life?

How about Don Drysdale?

Yes, Big D.

The very same 6-foot-6 monster who fired fastballs at Mays, McCovey and Cepeda.

“Drysdale didn’t just throw at me every game,” Mays once said. “It was every at-bat.”

That’s just the way I remember it, too.

Funny thing, though.

As many times as Mays hit the dirt when one of Drysdale’s sidearm heaters came buzzing toward his noggin, the record book doesn’t lie.

In 243 career plate appearances against Drysdale, Willie was only hit twice.

Meanwhile, McCovey just pounded Big Don, and I loved it.

I mean, Drysdale was the perfect villain, the huge character who openly bragged he was going to pitch inside — so it was YOUR job to get out of the way.

Even though Mays was limber enough to hit the dirt, plenty of hitters were not.

Drysdale hit 154 batters in his career, which remains the major league record.

THE IDEA that I might become pals with Don Drysdale, might share a beer with him after games, might go out to dinner and meet his wife…

Now, that just seemed preposterous.

But in 1973, when I was covering the Kansas City Royals, Don partnered with Dick Enberg doing the California Angels radio broadcasts.

In the press lounge after a game one night in Anaheim, Royals radio voice Bud Blattner grabbed me and said: “Hey, you’ve got to meet someone.”

It turned out to be Drysdale, and my first instinct was grab a steak knife from a nearby table.

Of all things, though, Don Drysdale turned out to be one of the nicest people I’ve ever known.

He laughed when I told him about growing up near San Francisco, and freely admitted that “pitching inside” was his way of making a living.

“They got me back, too,” he said. “Those were the days when players policed the game.

“I knocked Willie down in one inning, then I hit Cepeda.

“I was leading off the next inning, and Bobby Bolin was pitching for the Giants. He threw hard, and I knew what was coming. When Bobby wound up, I just turned my back to the mound and took one square on the spine.”

To Drysdale, that was real baseball.

OVER THE next few years, I looked forward to our trips to Anaheim, and at least one night out with Don.

It sounds crazy, I know, but we became really good friends.

The people you love or hate from the stands as fans, well…

They’re actually human beings inside those uniforms, and it can be a real surprise to meet the real person.

When Drysdale died of a sudden heart attack in 1984 — inside a Montreal hotel room on a routine broadcasting trip — he was just 56 years old.

He had been married to Ann Meyers, herself an Olympic basketball player, only seven years.

The entire Dodgers organization was in shock, and so was I.

He was in the prime of his life.

I remember thinking of all those times I wanted one of the Giants to hit that big son of a gun with a line drive.

Like I said, this is a crazy profession.

You root like mad for some teams when you’re young, and then you actually meet those people as an adult.

Drysdale and I had a golf date that never happened.

I missed you, big guy.

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.