Chamberlain was one of the first sports stars I recall as a child.  When I was a kid, when it came to basketball players, there was Wilt - and then there was everyone else.  He was so good, so large in physical stature and presence, so as to be otherworldly in my young mind.  It was impossible to imagine anyone could possibly surpass him as a basketball player - and, in my opinion, no one ever has.  Michael Jordan may have done everything else, but he never scored 100 points in a game, as Wilt did.  Wilt never fouled out of a game.  Those achievements are Wilt's — seemingly forever.  The phrase "larger than life" may have been invented for Wilt.  Women uninterested in sports knew who he was.

    Wilt's death affected me in ways beyond the loss of a boyhood sports hero.  Although he was older than me, Chamberlain was nevertheless arguably still of my own generation.  Others my age have died young — from disease and accident — but Wilt is reported to have died of a heart attack, a condition associated with advanced age more than with illness or accident.

    One confronts mortality in strange ways.  The death of a perceived age peer is one of those ways.  On the night of the last game at Tiger Stadium, in Detroit, dozen of stars from old Tiger teams took the field one last time in a tribute to the Old Girl.  My memory flooded with names and images of the past, especially with those of the ‘68 Tigers, on whose every pitch and hit I hung that summer and fall.  I knew the entire team roster, the starting lineup. I personally witnessed Denny McClain pitch his 30th win against the A's.

    But the men who walked, ran and, in some cases, stumbled out of the dugout tunnel and into the bright stadium lights that night were not the heroes of my youth, forever frozen in my memory's images.  Who were these guys, these old men with gray hair and pot bellies - some with no hair at all?  Where were the dark-haired, smooth-skinned, graceful athletes I had worshiped as a youth?

    Well, they were the same ballplayers I remembered - only older.  Time had been kinder to some than others.  I imagine as they stood gathered on the green field that night, they must have privately had thoughts much along the same line as the ones I was having - that the old men whom they now stood could not possibly have been their old teammates with whom they battled opponents on that field in sunshine, under clouds or bright lights.

    Other events can trigger this phenomenon: going to a high school or college reunion and seeing one's contemporaries are no longer teenagers or in the prime of life. Or the death of a classmate quietly reported in a newsletter.  Or the 20th or 30th anniversary of an event it seemed happened just last week or last month or last year and the memories of which are more vivid than the ones of events which actually did just occur.

    I read a book once about turning 50.  When the author was asked how it felt to be 50, he said, "I feel like I did when I was 25, except that I have been in a fight."  That's the thing - in our minds we never age.  We see the pages of our calendars fly off, the years roll by and our children grow but our most vivid memories of youth remain fresh and intact and out bodies want to be there, too.  So, when confronted with the tangible, palpable reality that 20, 30 or 40 years have gone by, we reel back with disbelief and denial.

    Wilt's death and the closing ceremony at Tiger Stadium were such epiphanal events, sudden doses of time's reality.  They were the kind of things which cause one to begin to leave work a bit earlier each day, to inexplicably hug a spouse or child for no apparent reason, as if such acts will somehow serve to hold back the relentless rush of accelerating time.

    So, in my mind, Wilt will always be there, a full head taller than anyone else, smiling and dominating his universe.  And I will forever remain the boy sitting at the Tiger game with my Dad or my pals watching ageless heroes in their impossibly white uniforms glisten with youth and joy under a cloudless sky.