Last week Patricia and I were out to dinner at Cafe Presse with another couple and an American friend visiting from Vietnam. I was relaying a story about the 2012 election and began in this manner. “The best explanation I can come up with is, I think Obama is doing what Willie Mays often did. A lot of times, when...”

At which point I was interrupted by Myriam, one half of the couple, who asked the following question:

Who's Willie Mays?

I was stunned. I didn't know how to answer. It was as if someone had asked me: Who's Abraham Lincoln? What's bubble gum? Where's the sky?

In Myriam's defense, she arrived in this country from the Philippines when she was 7, in 1977, when Willie's playing career was over.

On the other hand, her husband, Jim, is a big baseball fan. But he's mostly a Yankees fan, and Yankee fans are notoriously myopic when it comes to the rest of the sport. Myriam knows enough to root for the Yankees but not much beyond that. At least she didn't ask, “Was he as big as Derek Jeter?”

Eventually I got on with my story but that was the bigger story to me.

Who's Willie Mays?

About broke my heart.