This embodies 11. It was evident that he embraced you as a person before anything else. He wanted you to know that he was invested in who you were, regardless of what you could do with a bat or a ball. His success was built from his humanity, a treasure to all who knew him.
In my 2nd year as a baseball student manager, I rear ended 11’s Cadillac in the lot behind LF. Mortified, I parked & braced for the worst. What I got was a laugh, a hug, and “shake it off buddy, they give me those (cars). There ain’t a better guy to hit!” I’ll miss him a ton.