Here are my stories of famous people I've met, listed below in no particular order, and posted for no particular reason, other than seeing Brent's "Stars" page.

Billie Jean King: Met her in London. My wife and I went to go see a play with Richard Thomas and BJK was sitting three rows behind us. After the show, we were standing in front of the theater and Ms. King walked right in front of me, and I said, "Hello, Ms. King," and she stopped and turned around. Her companion shot me an evil eye, but Ms. King smiled, said "Hello" and stuck out her hand. I said, "Ms. King, I just wanted to tell you how much my wife and I admire you." "Thank you, she said, and you are?" So I introduced myself and my wife, and Billie Jean asked us where we were from, then she said it was nice to meet us, she hoped we enjoyed our time in London and she was off.

Tony Gwynn: This was probably in 1985 or 1986. I was at a driving range in San Diego, near East County, called Mission Trails. I had just started hitting a few balls, and I took a look at the guy next to me. He was left handed and really hitting some solid drives. I watched him hit a couple and started to think he looked familiar. Finally, I worked up the courage to say, "You know, you look a heck of a lot like Tony Gwynn." And he said, "Well, maybe that's because I am." So Tony and I chatted about baseball for about 20 minutes. Even to this day, I think it's just great that I got to spend 20 minutes talking baseball with one of the greatest baseball men of our generation.

Nate Colbert: I first met Nate when I was 10 or 11 years old. There was an autograph session at Hoover High School (the former HS, I should mention, of Ted Williams), which was about two blocks from my house in East San Diego (I grew up on 44th Street). Nate was there with Jerry Coleman and Dave Campbell. I hung around until every other kid had left, and then I walked with Nat, Jerry and Dave to their cars. Nate talked with me the whole time. It was a huge thrill for a kid who thought Nate Colbert was the greatest player in baseball. Many years later, Nate was asked to speak to the faculty of my college. I heard he was on campus, so I rushed over to hall where he was scheduled to speak. He had arrived early and was just standing outside the hall, alone, waiting. I introduced myself and we talked for about 10 minutes before faculty started arriving. Colbert is still one of my heroes. Colbert can certainly appreciate a small-boy's idol worship. He grew up a fan of Stan Musial and was in the stands the day Stan the Man blasted five home runs in a double header, a major league record. Nate tied that record 18 years later (the picture I'm posting with this — I have an autographed print of it that I got that day I first met Colbert).

Eric Show: One of the saddest moments of my life was sitting at home one evening watching Star Trek with my wife when a news teaser came on: "Padres pitcher found dead ..." and the picture on the screen was of Show. I immediately burst into tears. I was surprised at my emotional response, because I'm usually a little more stoic than that. But the news was so unexpected. I hadn't talked with Eric in about five years and I had no idea how much his life had fallen apart (he died of a drug overdose). But for a while, I considered Show a friend. Our friendship started when I wrote him a letter criticizing him for a quote in the newspaper. He responded. We started a year-long correspondence about politics (as conservative as I've become since then, his politics would probably still be to the right of mine). Eventually, we would talk on the phone once in a while, get together for lunch and I'd stop by his guitar shop when he was in town. It wasn't a close friendship, by any means, but he told me about some of the demons he fought and I knew he was a complex man — too complex to have a smooth ride in the sports world — but he was a good man.