Former Chicago White Sox and New York Mets manager Jerry Manuel remembers the first time he met the bird as teammates playing for Evansville.

It's interesting.

We were playing a series in minor leagues, AAA baseball in Oklahoma City, and we needed a pitcher to come up and help us out a little bit.

We looked down.

I think we were in like the first or third inning or whatever, getting ready to start the game, and we're out kind of warming up.

And we see this guy come in with a regular Hanes white t-shirt, some cut-off jeans, shorts, they were shorts, cut-off, frazzled, and some Converse tennis shoes.

And we're wondering, who the heck is this guy? And, you know, curly hair and lots of locks.

He was box office personified.

Former Chicago White Sox and New York Mets manager Jerry Manuel remembers the first time he met the bird as teammates playing for Evansville.

It's interesting.

We were playing a series in minor leagues, AAA baseball in Oklahoma City, and we needed a pitcher to come up and help us out a little bit.

We looked down.

I think we were in like the first or third inning.

We were getting ready to start the game, and we were all kind of warming up.

And we see this guy come in with a regular Hanes white T-shirt, some cut-off jeans, shorts, they were shorts, cut-off, frazzled, and some Converse tennis shoes.

He recognized Bird's quirks and talents right away.

His death hit his family and friends hard and also rocked his former teammates, who remembered his carefree spirit and his joy.

He competed and he competed with joy.

He competed with freedom.

I mean, man, we missed that guy.

That was a tough time for me when we lost him.

We think he had dyslexia.

Dyslexia, that's what is...

We got all the time you need.

Well, baseball started for me with my dad.

My dad, uh, was, uh, played a little barnstorm ball in the Negro league.

Uh, and come to find out later in life, uh, you know, he wasn't ...

He was a pitcher.

They'd come and get him, he'd go pitch, come back home to mom, whatever.

And then, uh, when she wouldn't let him go, he would form leagues in Georgia, little leagues in Georgia-

Mm-hmm.