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The Legend of Stan the Kid (page 2 of 2) Halfway through his junior season, the sports editor at the Herald told his writers, “If I see one more article about Stan McGee where you use the words ‘ballet’ or ‘pirouette,’ I’ll have you covering the gol-dang Nutcracker this December. Expand your gol-dang vocabulary or perish, my miserable minions of monotony!” The next week, the headline read “The Whirling Dervish of Wheeling Delivers”. Pro scouts started attending his games. College coaches were writing and calling his house and his coach. When he spoke with the college coaches, Stan made sure they knew that he would not consider any school unless they guaranteed him at least a shot to compete for the shortstop position. Only Vanderbilt would agree, and so off he went to Nashville, Tennessee. In four years at Vanderbilt, Stan turned the naysayers into his biggest supporters. His range was excellent, his arm was strong, and his aim was unassailable. Only three throwing errors in each of his first three years. On top of that, he hit over .400 all four seasons. When draft day came, it was the Montreal Expos who called his name in the third round. He had hoped for the Cubs in order to get back home. Or the Cardinals, which had appealed to him since he had first learned who the real “Stan the Man” was. But he did not share with anyone the fact of his disappointment, not even his parents. Instead, he talked of the Expos’ great, albeit limited, history. When interviewed by the Vanderbilt Hustler’s sportswriter about the draft, Stan said that the Expos’ Rusty Staub had been one of his heroes growing up. He joked that his mom had used his love for Rusty to get him into the kitchen to work on his cooking skills so that he could be “two-skilled,” as she called it, just like Mr. Staub. Despite his earnestness, that first year the Expos sent Stan as far away from Montreal as one could get, single A-ball down in West Palm Beach, Florida. Since Stan had never seen the ocean before, he was excited to get to the beaches in Florida, and even more excited about seeing an alligator in the wild. So, even though the pay in Class A ball was embarrassingly low, Stan gladly headed off to West Palm Beach in the spring of 1977. Most importantly, he was just excited to play baseball. Ricky Davide, the team’s second baseman, was from Pompano Beach, which was just down the road from West Palm Beach. Ricky and Stan bonded the first day of practice over their shared love of taking ground balls. By the end of the week, they were fast friends, and Stan had shared his desire to see an alligator. Davide offered to take Stan to the Everglades that coming Sunday. “It’ll be fun, I’ll show you some alligators.” “Not too close though, right?” Davide laughed, “Ahhh, they’re not that big a deal. We keep our distance, no worries.” So that Sunday afternoon, after church, Ricky borrowed his parents’ 1972 Capri and the two of them went to see if they could find an alligator. When Monday’s practice came, Stan and Ricky didn’t show up. Ten minutes late. Then thirty. After an hour, the manager sent his assistant off to find Stan and Ricky. At this point, Finn lowered his voice so that they could barely hear him. It wasn’t until the next day that the cops had been notified that they had found Ricky Davide’s car along the side of the road on the Everglades Parkway. The cops searched the area near where they found the car. In doing so, they found two sets of footprints heading towards the water. When they followed the footprints, they came to an area right next to the water where the grass and mud had been disturbed. An unmistakable sign of conflict. George jumped up, “No way! Say it ain’t so, Finn.” “Well, George I hate to tell you, but… There were alligator footprints throughout, with some going deep into the mud, presumably driven by the alligator seeking leverage, pushing hard to turn its body, perhaps even more so with the weight of a human body in its jaws. The cops also found traces of blood on the reeds closest to the water. The reluctant but obvious conclusion was that Ricky and Stan had both been eaten by alligators. Perhaps one was caught first, and the other sought to help, only to be grabbed as well. The Florida Game and Fresh Water Fish Commission sent folks out to hunt for the alligators. In the next week, they had killed 12 alligators and examined their stomachs only to find some ducks and muskrats, snakes and fish, even an old license plate. But they found no sign of Stan or Ricky. There would never be any sign of either of them. Ever. Within days, everybody pretty much accepted that they had met their untimely demise in the jaws of an alligator. In addition to the usual testimonials by friends and family as to the wonderful people they were, their love for the game of baseball and their teammates, there were sportswriters who awkwardly lamented the fact that their one chance to see a left-handed shortstop play in the majors was now gone. Some suggested that since Stan had demonstrated it was possible, others would surely follow. Perhaps in his hometown Stan’s exploits on the field as he was growing up would have already inspired some lefties to try their hand at shortstop and emboldened some coaches to facilitate their growth. Some thought that maybe Wheeling would become the Dominican Republic of the left-handed shortstop. As with too many other legends, Stan McGee disappeared too soon, leaving behind only that - a legend, fed by stories that grew and morphed, without regard to the facts. “Stan killed the alligator and then choked to death eating its heart on the side of the road.” “Stan walked from Illinois to Florida for his first game in Class A.” “Stan had his left hand bitten off, and was so disheartened that he ran off to Uruguay to live the rest of his life as a right-hander.” “Stan’s parents tied his right hand behind his back for three years in the hopes that he’d become a left-handed pitcher.” Some even claimed that Stan and Ricky had defected to Cuba, where Stan played for 20 years as a righthanded shortstop. None of this was true. But the essentials of the legend were real. Stan McGee did make that play back in ’69, when as a freshman in high school, he slid into the bunt, popped up and threw to first in one fluid continuous pirouette of brilliance. His ability to spin and throw with accuracy had caused jaws to drop since he was 8 years old. His improvisation around second base was unmatched and would always be so. He had no playbook to draw from. All future left-handed shortstops would know what Stan McGee did not know – that it can be done. And it was that trail-blazing path of brilliant athleticism, combined with the mystery of his disappearance, that left us with only the legend. The legend of Stan the Kid. George turned to his dad, “Is all that really true?” His dad tilted his head slightly, “I reckon Finn got the facts just about right, son.” ---THE END---