One warm summer’s night in the 1990s, Anne Exum found herself in a darkened corridor of Historic Engel Stadium as she dressed up a hot dog during a Chattanooga Lookouts game.
Behind her at that moment stood a man talking to his daughter on a pay phone.
“Sweetheart,” she heard him say, “I’m so sorry I’m missing your birthday. I just wanted you to know Daddy loves you and misses you.”
Finding this gesture both sweet and touching, the mother of two turned around to discover the man she’d been listening to was none other than Bill Buckner, the former Boston Red Sox player who was a roving hitting instructor with the Chicago White Sox by then.
“I’ve never forgotten that,” Exum said Tuesday morning, the day after Buckner sadly lost his battle with Lewy body dementia at the tender age of 69. “I’ve always been a Red Sox fan, and I always liked Buckner, but I looked at him a little differently after that, as someone who was a really good husband and father.”