The Business Card
How an odd Century 21 business card sent me on a wild Willie Mays goose chase
A friend recently gave me an incredibly generous gift — this business card from a Century 21 Travel salesman named Jim Hedge in Tarzana, California. I’ve tried to enhance it a little bit so you can see it clearly, but basically, this is what it looks like.
I had no idea just how much this card would take over my life.
It’s a long business card — probably 1.25 times longer than a typical card — and it screams 1960s business style. This is the sort of card you could imagine Harry Crane carrying around. It’s a bright yellow, it has that funny CABLE: “CENTURYTRAV” thing in the top left-hand corner, and my second favorite part about the card is that it has Jim Hedge’s home number on there.
You could imagine Jim giving this card to clients and saying, “My home number is on there. If you need anything, call me anytime. I never sleep.”
When this friend gave me the card, he thought he was giving me fun little gift.
What he did not know was that he was giving me an obsession to chase.
Who was Jim Hedge? What was his deal? What did he like to do? What were his hopes? His dreams?
And why, oh why, was the back of this card signed by Willie Mays?
Settle in, folks. This is going to be a wild and strange ride.
Have any of you seen this show on BritBox called “Ludwig?” Margo and I just started watching it, and it’s truly wonderful — we started watching it because a friend told me that it has an amazing assortment of pens and notebooks.
The story is that Ludwig (that’s his pen name) is a creator of puzzles, and through a very funny series of events (he has a twin brother, his twin brother is missing, he’s probably in love with the wife of his twin brother, we’re still early in the show), he ends up solving murders. The thing about it is, he doesn’t want to solve murders. He only wants to go back to his home and create puzzles. Unfortunate for Ludwig, once he hears about a murder, he can’t help but try to solve it because murders are the ultimate puzzles … and he is incapable of letting go.
When Jeff, the friend, gave me this card, he undoubtedly thought I would just like to have a Willie Mays autograph. And I do. It’s lovely. It’s clear and authenticated, and it even has the fun “To Pal” on it, which, I don’t know if Willie signed every autograph like that, but it’s cool. To Pal.
But, like Ludwig, I had to at least try to find out what happened here. I mean, was Willie just walking by? Did he happen to be in Tarzana when he had the urge to go on a trip? Did Jim go to a ballgame, get a chance to meet Willie Mays, and the only thing he had to sign was one of his business cards?
And who wrote WILLIE MAYS in all caps on the bottom? I assume that was Jim.
Did Jim get a lot of famous people to autograph his business cards? Did he put all of their names on the bottom so he would remember which card was which? Or did he ask Willie Mays to write his name on the bottom? Or did Willie voluntarily write his name on the bottom just to be nice?
The first thing I found out about Jim Hedge is that he was a bowler. There are so many things I miss about the golden age of newspapers … one of them is that just about every paper had a weekly bowling column. It was somebody’s job to record the top bowling scores from leagues around the city; one of the great joys of my childhood was seeing my father’s name in the paper when he would bowl a 200 game or 600 series. Community journalism … it brought us together somehow.
“Hey,” people used to say. “I saw your dad’s name in the paper.”
Sigh.
Anyway, Jim Hedge was a regular in the Greater Los Angeles bowling columns, particularly in Ray Rosenbaum’s column in the Valley Times of North Hollywood. He was mentioned so often that every now and again, Ray would just throw a little side into his column wondering how “our friend Jim Hedge” might feel about something. For instance, in 1964, a Tarzana bowling alley started hosting risque entertainment in order to bring in larger crowds.
Jim wasn’t a fan of that. He believed in the sanctity of bowling alleys.
“I have nothing against this type of show,” he said. “But I don’t think it belongs in a bowling alley. I have bowled for 20 years and am a member of the Professional Bowlers of America. The game has been brought up to a high standard and should be kept that way. Women and children bowling in daytime leagues should not be exposed to burlesque shows.”
Of course, I can’t say with 100 percent certainty that this is same Jim Hedge.
But I’m 99 percent certain. Tarazana ain’t that big a place.
Jim Hedge lived a sort of Fred Flintstone existence — he bowled a lot, obviously, and his wife was involved in numerous church activities at St. James right there in Tarzana, and he seemed to belong to a couple of men’s clubs.
“Yeah!” Annie from “Field of Dreams” says, “But what’s it gotta do with baseball?”
In February 1965, Jim’s daughter Patricia married William Hardwick at St. James Church. Pat, as she was apparently known, had attended Reseda High … and I thought I had my first clue. Do you know who else attended Reseda High School … and precisely at the same time as Pat? Big league pitcher Jim McGlothlin.
And I imagined the scene — maybe Pat Hedge and Jim McGlothlin dated or something. Maybe they were just friends. Maybe Jim and Jim and stayed pals. Maybe pitcher Jim introduced Century 21 Jim to Willie Mays. Maybe!
Yeah, it’s weak sauce.
I started to give up on this whole thing.
Before I closed off the investigation, I ran across one more bowling story about Jim Hedge. This one was a little bit different. This one wasn’t about Jim as a bowler. This was about the bowling prowess of Jim’s son-in-law, William Hardwick.
Billy, everybody called him.
It turns out Billy had a knack for bowling — he had a knack for bowling, even though he had lost a finger in a machine shop accident. The lost finger, for some reason, kept him from getting a lot of spin on the ball — he bowled dead straight and also much slower than many of the other top guys. Somehow, even with that style, he racked up so many strikes that people began calling him “The Magician.”
Billy was such a fine bowler that Jim staked him $3,000 and encouraged him to try his luck on the fledgling Pro Bowlers Tour. It was money well spent. Billy struggled at first but soon became one of the top bowlers in the world. In 1965, an Akron lawyer (and non-bowler) named Eddie Elias came up with this idea for a big-money bowling extravaganza called the “Firestone Tournament of Champions.”
“I think bowling is a better game for TV than golf,” Eddie told Sports Illustrated. “It’s like a game show — if he does it, he wins the money. If he doesn’t, he loses.”
Billy Hardwick won the very first Firestone Tournament of Champions. In fact, he became the first to win the triple crown of bowling — Firestone, the U.S. Open and the PBA National. He was Pro Bowler of the year in 1963 (just after marrying Pat) and 1969, when he set the record for most titles won in a season.
Billy Hardwick is in the Pro Bowlers Hall of Fame. In 2008, the PBA ranked him the 12th greatest bowler ever.
“Yeah!” Annie from “Field of Dreams” says, “But what’s it gotta do with baseball?”
OK, here’s my guess: Billy Hardwick and Willie Mays were at the same event somewhere. Maybe it was an Alabama event — Billy was born in Alabama (“I’m the biggest Alabama fan there is,” he was quoted saying”), and so was Willie Mays. I can’t actually FIND the event, but I feel like it had to … HEY, here’s a Billy Hardwick quote that ran in The Cleveland Press in 1972 when he was asked about losing his passion for the sport.
“You know, guys like Willie Mays and Hank Aaron are older than me,” he said. “And they are still doing the job. But they don’t have to be mentally geared up for an entire game … maybe for part of a game or one certain game, they are bending their mind, but it’s a fluctuating kind of intensity. But in a game like bowling you aren’t going to get paid unless you go out to win.”
No, that doesn’t really say anything at all … but it is Billy Hardwick and Willie Mays in the same paragraph.
I think Billy Hardwick introduced Jim Hedge to Willie Mays.
And I can imagine the scene:
“Hey Willie,” Billy Hardwick said. “Come on over here. I want you to meet my father-in-law Jim.”
“It’s a great honor for me,” Jim Wedge said.
“Oh, none of that,” Willie Mays replied. “You want me to sign something for you?”
“Oh,” Jim said as he reached for a pen and one of his card. “Could you sign the back of my business card?” And Willie signed “To Pal, Willie Mays.”
And as the greatest ballplayer who ever lived walked away, Jim Wedge memorialized the moment but writing on the bottom of the card, very neatly, “WILLIE MAYS.”
OK, where else can this absurdity go? Well, I just typed in “Willie Mays” and “Billy Hardwick” into the search engine.
And a story came up from comedian, actor, and podcaster Chris Hardwick.
Yes, Chris Hardwick is the son of Billy Hardwick.
I don’t know if this makes Chris Jim Hedge’s grandson — Billy Hardwick married five times, and it’s not clear how long that first marriage lasted. In truth, I don’t know how much I really learned here. This whole thing was probably nothing more than chasing ghosts on a treadmill. But what is life without wild goose chases? What is collecting autographs about if not creating memories? What is a business card worth if it doesn’t have the person’s home phone number on it?
This was where the original story ended … but Brilliant Reader Jake adds a whole new level of intrigue by asking a seemingly simple question:
“Does the inscription actually say, “To Pal?”
I just assumed it does. Jeff, who gave me this card, thought the same. It makes sense.
Only … does it? Does anyone ever really ever sign something “To Pal?” I’ve signed tens of thousands of books, and I’ve never done that. Nor has anyone asked me to do it. Maybe “To MY Pal.” But “To Pal?” Never.
And now it all comes together, and I can’t believe I didn’t see it before.
The card doesn’t say “To Pal.” It says “To Pat.”
Willie Mays didn’t sign this card for Jim Hedge, he signed it for Jim’s daughter — Billy Hardwick’s first wife.
AND THAT’S PROBABLY WHY SOMEONE WROTE WILLIE MAYS ON THE BOTTOM!
Whoa.
It turns out Pat was Keyser Söze all along.
So glad to see you back on Substack Joe. I subscribe to your newsletter OBTW! Thanks for this story. You have a gift!