Charles's way to the majors was blocked by Eddie Mathews, the Braves' future Hall of Fame third baseman, but he also saw lesser infielders called up.

He made it to the majors after being traded to the Kansas City Athletics in 1962.

At 34, Charles was traded to the Mets in 1967, when they were still staggering along at the bottom of the league.

In a game weeks after joining the team, he went to his left and snagged a hard shot before it could go past him, impressing the rookie left-handed pitcher Jerry Koosman so much that Koosman walked toward third base.

"He was sort of flabbergasted that I'd made the play," Charles recalled in 2009. "He said, 'You sort of glide to the ball. That's it. You're the Glider from now on.'" [...]

Charles was always eager to talk about his brushes with Jackie Robinson, starting with the sighting in Daytona Beach in 1946.

Charles also recounted a story of how he later spotted Robinson, who was by then on the Brooklyn Dodgers' roster, on a train.

The Dodgers were in Florida playing an exhibition, and Charles and several friends "peered through openings in the fence," he recalled in "Carrying Jackie's Torch: The Players Who Integrated Baseball -- and America," by Steve Jacobson (2007).

After the game, the Dodgers prepared to leave from the railroad station.

"So now we're walking down the platform, looking in the windows trying to see where Jackie was seated," Charles said. "Finally we come to the right coach, and there is Jackie, playing cards. We waved and, you know, he waved back to us."

"Then the train starts pulling out," he went on, "and we start slowly walking with it, just waving to Jackie. The train picked up speed. We kept running and waving till the train got out of sight."

"Things like that, you know, I can recall so vividly," he said, "because they were very special moments in my life and in the life of the country. It was like the Messiah had come."