Tito Fuentes conquered the fear of having a good time a long time ago. He was one of the most colorful players in San Francisco Giants history. He was the first guy to wear wristbands, headbands, gold chains and platform shoes. He was the trendsetter for clothing and a trendsetter for twirling a bat and a trendsetter for how to get to first base on a base on balls.

He would literally walk to first. It would always upset the opposing team. Tito did not care. He loved it when an opponent yelled at him. He was the consummate hot dog, and the Giants fans loved him. He was recently voted to both the 1960s and 1970s All-Decade Teams at second base.

Willie Mays called him "Teeeee-toe."

Jack Hiatt called him "Tito Few-Hit-es."

The rest of the National League called him "Perro Caliente," which is Spanish for hot dog.

You loved to play with him and you hated to play against him. He always seemed to be in the right place at the right time, and if you were an opposing player trying to go hard into second base to break up a double play, you could never get a piece of him. He would vanish into thin air. It was the magic of Rigoberto Fuentes, a.k.a. "Tito."

Willie Mays has a great Tito story, and when he tells it, he laughs out loud about four times. Say "Tito" to Willie and he will smile.

Willie Mays had done a lot of amazing things in his great career, but never had he or anyone else accomplished a "defensive cycle." A defensive cycle is a four-assist game for an outfielder with the putouts being recorded at every base, one at first, one at second, one at third and one at home. Mays had dreamed about doing this (which, by the way, tells you something about the standard and the throwing arm of Willie Mays).

The Giants were playing the Dodgers in San Francisco in the late '60s with Don Drysdale on the mound for the Bums and Gaylord Perry on the mound for the Giants. Mays was in center and Tito was playing second base.

In the third inning, Drysdale came up to bat and roped a line drive to Mays in center field. Mays saw Drysdale put his head down and run at about three-quarter speed down to first base. Mays saw the running effort by Drysdale and knew he had shot to gun him at first. Mays took the ball on one hop and threw a bullet to Willie McCovey at first; they nailed Drysdale by a half step. Score it 8-3 on the putout.

In the fifth inning, the Dodgers center fielder, Willie Davis, tried to go from first to third on a base hit to center field. Foolish move — Mays nailed him at third. Score it 8-5.

In the seventh inning, Maury Wills was on second base when Tommy Davis hit a ground ball up the middle for a base hit. Mays charged the ball aggressively, hoping to get a chance at Wills. He fielded the ball cleanly and came up gunning with a one-hop strike to home. Wills is nailed on a bang-bang play. Score it 8-2 on the putout.

Finally in the ninth, Willie knew exactly what was going on. He needed an assist with a putout at second base to get the cycle. Up stepped Jim Lefebvre, who promptly launched a line drive into the right-center gap. Lefebvre hit first base with one thing on his mind — a double. Mays headed straight for the gap, cut off the ball, wheeled and fired a strike to second base where his little second baseman, Tito Fuentes, was waiting.

The throw from Mays was perfect. That was the good news. The ball got to Fuentes with room to spare and they should have gotten Lefebvre by about five feet. Tito reached for the ball and it squirted out of his glove. Lefebvre was safe. That was the bad news. Mays was denied his defensive cycle.

All Willie could do was look at Tito and yell, "Teeeeeeeeeeeeeeee-toe what have you done? Teeeeeeeeeeee-toe!" Tito looked up at his friend in center field expecting to see an angry Willie Mays. Instead, he saw Mays break out into a huge smile, which then caused Tito to smile back.

"I sorry Meester Willie," Tito said. "That won't happen again." Willie could only shake his head and know that Tito spoke the truth.