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"In his early years Willie Mays was looked after, some said coddled, by Manager Leo Durocher, whose celebrated truculence with opponents and umpires was matched by his paternal attitude toward his star center fielder. Willie Mays called him 'Mr. Leo' back then, and he acknowledges Leo Durocher, who died in 1991, as a father figure. 'Leo always made sure I knew what suit to buy and how to dress. He’d never holler at me. If he had something to say, he’d talk soft. When we were in California, I’d stay at his house, and when we went on the road, his kid was my roommate. Chris Durocher, he was about 7. We’d go on the road, and Leo would say: ‘You got him,’ so for two weeks. I can’t go nowhere, can’t do nothing. I think that was Leo’s way of looking after me." Willie Mays recalled that he managed to make money on this arrangement. Mays ate at restaurants where the black players were welcome, and took Chris with him. When Chris reported to his father he had been on a steady diet of soul food, Durocher told Mays that he wanted his son to be able to eat steak. "And I said, ‘Well give me some steak money then.' And Leo would whip out four or five hundred dollars and stick it in my pocket. And we’d go somewhere and I’d ask Chris: ‘You want a steak?’. And Chris would say: ‘No, I’ll eat what you eat.’ I never told Leo." Leo and Chris Durocher.