I’d forgotten how old he is. Maybe I didn’t really want to know. We have these images in our lives now. Lucy and Desi are about 40, the Beaver is 8, and Fonzie is 20-something. Television has done that to us as well. The pictures defraud us into believing they are reality.

For me, Ted Williams is 40-something with his eyes closed on the follow-through of the swing. The swing was his last in the majors and the ball left the yard just the way it was supposed to in fairy tale endings. A freeze frame in one’s mind.

Williams was honored at Shea Stadium in New York Friday night before the Mets-Red Sox game. Former teammates and opponents showed up for a dinner of hearty laughs and quiet memories. Walt Dropo, Frank Malzone, Yogi Berra, Rusty Staub, Ralph Kiner, Tom Seaver, and Bill Fisher were some of the baseball names on hand to remember the Splendid Splinter.

Williams rode in from center field in the bullpen cart driven by Seaver. Williams rode around the field and then stopped at the mound where he stayed in the cart while the accolades of the guests flowed over and about him.

Kiner presented him with a silver bat. Williams stayed seated in the cart. Strokes over the past three years have taken their toll.

When it came time to throw out the first pitch, Seaver and Staub each took a side and helped Williams up from the cart. They steadied him as Mets catcher Mike Piazza waited to receive the first pitch.

He’s standing halfway to the mound from the plate to receive the first pitch from Williams, who is four steps in front of the mound. Williams has the ball, but keeps waving Piazza back toward the plate. Staub and Seaver are stuck. They cannot move Williams closer to Piazza. He’s right where he intends to be. Just like when he was 30-something, when Williams gets right where he wants to be, nobody is going to move him. You might as well try and move him out of his fishing hole as try and move him closer to the plate.

Finally, Piazza is just in front of the plate and Williams raises his right index finger to say, right there. Like the great fisherman he is, the arm swings back and the lax line grows taut. The ball is the dry fly at the end of the majestic arc and as it comes forward you know there are silent prayers that it hits its target. Ted Williams isn’t 30-something anymore and the rod has seen a lot of water flow by.

But Ted Williams is Ted Williams. Ornery and effusive. Proud and compulsive. Baseballs and flies learned a long time ago that life’s a lot quieter and nicer if you just go where he wants you to go. It does.

On the fly, with the grace of greatness, the ball lands in Piazza’s glove.

Seaver and Staub both exude big grins. Piazza literally hops out to the mound to get the ball signed and to have his picture taken with Williams. Williams is again the center of attention. He called the shots one more time, and one more time the ball did what he wanted it to do.

Life plays cruel games on us mere mortals. Sometimes the dreams, the memories, are better than where we ended up. Sometimes.

Then again, Williams starts to talk about hitting and you wouldn’t be anywhere else in the world. The ball sails out of his hand and travels just the distance he knew it would and you know there is a God.

He leaves the booth with his son on one arm to help support him; to help him see. Still you wonder, who’s really leading whom.

NEWS columnist Gary Thorne, an Old Town native, is an ESPN and CBS broadcaster.