Say it ain’t so, Joe.
Say it’s not true that baseball lost one of its great ambassadors, a man who viewed the world through a diamond-shaped prism, whose one-liner shtick overshadowed one of the sport’s great philanthropic souls.
Say it ain’t so, Joe Garagiola.
You were far more than how you sold yourself, as a man “who went through baseball as a player to be named later.”
You were revered by many, as Jerry Colangelo learned once while visiting an Italian restaurant in your hometown of St. Louis and spotting three photos hanging on a bar wall.