Say HEY! Willie Mays, 75 on Saturday

When I saw his name at the top of that newsy Facebook sidebar, I assumed that was it. No--anniversary of the Catch.

On this date in 1954, Willie Mays made one of the most iconic defensive plays in World Series history. The Giants center fielder tracked down Vic Wertz's long fly ball to make "The Catch" — an over-the-head basket grab in deep center field at the Polo Grounds — during a crucial moment in Game 1 against the Indians. The Giants went on to win the World Series in a four-game sweep.

Today, Major League Baseball announced that the World Series MVP trophy has been renamed in honor of the Say Hey Kid.

http://m.mlb.com/news/article/256686298/world-series-mvp-award-renamed-for-willie-mays/

That rules

88 today

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UduDreaZq6c

And Happy Birthday too to Orson Welles and Sigmund Freud--May 6, genius day.

and John Flansburgh of They Might be Giants and frogbs

Have a good one--great day for your birthday.

say HEY

90 today. (Can't find the thread I once started on May 6 birthdays--Mays, Orson Welles, and Freud.)

91 today, happy birthday

https://www.mlb.com/news/willie-mays-best-stats-and-accomplishments

Hope to see this somewhere:

https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/tv/tv-news/hbo-willie-mays-documentary-1235229775/

Still one of the greatest moments in baseball history pic.twitter.com/EsPYqCXRaf

— BaseballHistoryNut (@nut_history) December 13, 2022

It really was, I'd agree. I don't think Mays is all that mobile these days, but if at all possible, I really wish they'd do the same for him next All-Star Game.

He was at one of the last games of the season - had hip surgery recently and wants to be at spring training.

There was a good SI piece about this, about how he didn’t want to be seen as a a museum piece and just enjoys spending time in the clubhouse with players.

I respect anything Willie says or wants, but watching all those players gather around Williams that year was just unbelievable--especially Gwynn next to him, whose chance at .400 five years earlier was cut short by the strike. (If you have a sharp eye, apparently there are 19 HOF'ers in that photo.)

I kept meaning to post this and today I found it in my tabs: Willie Mays talking to young Giants rookies in winter 2009. Bold from the original formatting, italics his!

The 25 or so young players sat in chairs encircling Mays, who sat behind a small table.

“All right, guys, c’mon, what else?’’ Mays said, prompting the next question.

Ever get timed in the 60?
“No, no! I didn’t run! I told them, ‘I can’t run the ball over the fence.’ When they were out running, I was asleep in the clubhouse. They got you just running here? You doing some hitting?’’

No, the players said. Just conditioning work.
“That’s not fun! Maybe I should say something. You want to hit a little bit and then go run. You got to enjoy yourself.’’

He told them about his struggles against Drysdale, Gibson, Koufax and Bob Rush then added: “I made up for it on all the other guys, the scrubs. I destroyed them.’’

Best players you ever saw?
Robert Clemente, Mays said. Barry Bonds — “If I don’t say Barry, he’ll start a fight.’’ Bobby Bonds (Now, he could run!’’ ) , Maury Wills (“Played a good shortstop.’’) and Frank Robinson (“Triple Crown winner’’).

What did you do in the off-season?
“Work, man, work! That’s a very good question. I played basketball, football — touch football — they didn’t know I played football! I had a 32 waistline. I worked out and played all the time. No time to lay around. Had to keep myself in shape. Played winter ball two times.’’

We’ve heard from other major-league players about what makes a good teammate. What’s your definition?
“In 1962, they made me captain. I positioned the outfielders, the infielders, I’d call pitches from centerfield — he didn’t have to take them but I wanted him throw a pitch I thought I could catch. You had to get 25 guys playing together even though nine or ten don’t play much at all and it feels bad. I’d go to the manager and say, ‘I want this guy to play because he needs to feel part of the team.’ The guy would go 9 for 10 and he’d go sit down and feel like a part of the team. When guys had problems at home, they’d come to me and I’d call their wives. I knew the wives better than I knew the players!’’

Your greatest baseball achievement?
“Man, I had so many! I think my greatest achievement was when I signed my major-league contract.’’

Greatest moment?
“Hitting four home runs in Milwaukee (with 8 RBI) was the greatest thing I ever did.’’

Best park to hit in?
“Wrigley. To me the ball went out of there pretty good.’’

Worst park to hit in?
“Candlestick. The wind’s always blowing in. We put a glove to a fence to see if it would fall and it didn’t fall. We could even hit it out in batting practice.
“I know you guys are saying, ‘Oh, hell, he didn’t do all this stuff. Oh yes I did.’’

What was your farthest home run?
“I never worried about that! You just get it over the fence! You don’t care how far it went.’’

What effect did race have back when you played?
“We went to some towns and I couldn’t stay in the same hotel. I remember once in Hagerstown, they dropped me off on the other side of the tracks. You guys from the South, you know what the other side of the track is. So they drop me off and I’m in a hotel, and at 2 o’clock in the morning two or three guys come through the window and sleep the rest of the night on my floor, and then at 6 a.m. they get up and go back out the window. They did the same thing the next night, watching out for me. Nothing was ever said.

“My father told me no matter what anybody said, never to fight. Turn the other cheek. I’d call him up and he’d ask, “Did you fight today?’ Back then, you had to make sure you were bigger than those people who called you names. They called you all kinds of names. But I knew for me to get ahead, I had to take all that kind of stuff. Every time somebody called me a name, I hit the ball.’’

What did you do in a slump?
“A slump is going to happen to everybody in some way. For me, a slump was 0-for-10. Everyone has a different way of getting out of a slump. I’d get out by swinging inside-out and getting a hit that way.’’

Throughout Mays’ talk, the young guys snapped photos with their cell phone, leaning close, recording forever their moment with the greatest player who ever stepped on a baseball field.

I have a great Willie Mays story involving a collector friend of mine.

My friend's a hardcore collector, so he wants things signed a precise way: certain kind of Sharpie, certain spot, perfectly legible, etc. He was at a show to get Mays' signature--having paid a pretty good amount, I'm sure--and when he got up to the table, Mays wouldn't use the Sharpie my friend offered him. So my friend said something like "Okay, fine; I'm going to go and get a refund." He starts to walk away, and Mays call him back. With great disdain, he takes my friend's Sharpie and half-heartedly signs whatever it was my friend had brought along (not a card; probably a photo). I can't remember if my friend was satisfied or not, but he took his item and went and stood by a wall. Mays, who had continued signing, spotted my friend and stopped everything.

"I'm not signing anything more until that guy"--points at my friend--"leaves."

That's as much as I remember; there was no great drama at the end, so I assume my friend just left, content with the autograph and the story he could tell for the rest of his life.

I really can’t understand that mentality. You’re meeting a living legend and you complain about the marker. Would personally never tell that story.

I would never pay for an autography myself (though I regret just a little not getting Thomson/Branca to sign together in one of the two Cooperstown trips I made), but that's a whole different world. Mays and players of his stature are getting paid extremely well; my friend is entitled to get a clear autograph for his money. I mean, that's the basic agreement.

I mean literally implying the guy won’t sign his name right? I’d be insulted too.

Don't get me wrong, I revere Mays. And I'm much more open to players from the '50s and '60s--especially African-American players--making good money at these signings; they were criminally underpaid throughout their careers. But with that stipulated, it's still a transaction where both parties should be happy.

I'm not sure what you mean...my friend doesn't imply that Mays wouldn't sign; it's that he wanted to sign with just a regular pen, which is just not what an autograph collector wants for his (guessing, and I'm not sure how far back this was) ~$100 or $150.

"autography"--I invented a new word. It's like an autograph, but more fun.

If you have 150-200 to spend on someone’s signature… maybe just take the L and don’t be a dick to Willie Mays ffs

Sorry 100-150!

I think where your buddy went wrong was in saying he was gonna get a refund. Makes him sound like a prima donna.

So if you can afford something, it's okay to not get what you thought you were paying for? What should my friend have done: said, "That's fine, sign with whatever you want--crayon will be fine"? If he doesn't get a clear signature, it's of no value to him--that's what a collector wants, even though such a mindset might not make sense to me or you.

If you read the post I made right before yours, Mays speaks pretty plainly about the things he went through as a black player to the point his teammates felt the need to sleep in his room to protect him. I think living through shit like that would make anyone pretty intolerant of lots of petty nonsense. Your friend was entitled to his autograph, he wasn’t entitled to tsk tsk a guy who’s probably gone through more shit then he’ll ever live through in his life because he preferred to use a biro.

What should my friend have done: said, "That's fine, sign with whatever you want--crayon will be fine"?

Yes.

We're going to have to disagree--a first, I know. My friend knows Mays's background very well, I assure you; he knows all about Willie Mays, that's why he wants his autograph. (His favourite player ever is Clemente.) But older players, black and white, make a lot of money signing autographs. People who watched them growing up go to those shows to get their autographs. And if the autograph is to have value--display value, investment value, whatever--something that's not going to last, or is illegible, isn't good enough. That's the understood transaction that's taking place.

Jimbeaux, I think I'd love to do business with you.

Funny thing is, gyac, my friend got under my skin once by saying something I could easily imagine you saying: told me that he loves the game for the art, and I love it for numbers. I told him that he was being really sanctimonious, and that he was missing a fundamental truth that there is art in baseball numbers.

That's the understood transaction that's taking place.

I am guessing he was using something that was fit for the purpose anyway. Your friend was just being an ass.

He quite likely wanted sign with a ballpoint pen. Which are terrible for autographs.

Let me recap as I understand it:
- your friend, a collector, wants Willie Mays’s autograph
- he pays whatever fee and joins the queue
- when he meets Mays, he asks him to sign with a sharpie, Mays doesn’t want to
- rather than accept an autograph signed with a pen, your friend decides he would rather have no autograph at all and goes to leave
- Mays, clearly annoyed, calls him back, signs with the marker but doesn’t put much effort into it
- your friend hangs around, Mays would very much like this guy out of his sight
- despite the bolded sentence, the key part, we are supposed to sympathise with your friend?

I didn't tell the story looking for anyone to sympathize with him! I actually thought it was a funny story. Only after the usual crew of three or four people materialized out of thin air to argue with me did I feel the need to defend him (which he'd find highly amusing, seeing as often he and I disagree). And yeah, if you're not happy that what you're about to get isn't what you paid for--cf. the San Francisco Giants and New York Mets--you'd rather have no autograph at all. That seems pretty basic to me.

I'm guessing my friend hung around because he wasn't satisfied with the autograph and was thinking about what he should do. I don't think there was a stipulation that people were to vacate the room immediately after their item had been signed.

Forgot it was Willie Mays/Orson Welles/Sigmund Freud day.

https://www.mlb.com/news/willie-mays-best-stats-and-accomplishments

92 is quite another accomplishment, Happy Birthday!

At the ballpark:

Always a special day when we get to celebrate Willie 🧡 pic.twitter.com/UdVWn75aI5

— SFGiants (@SFGiants) May 7, 2023

That's great. I'll say it again: dedicate the next All-Star Game to him while they still have the chance (and try to talk him into attending).

Today is Willie Mays Day (2/4/24)* and the Giants have been sharing videos with tributes:

Will Clark:

HAPPY WILLIE MAYS DAY!!! 🐐

A story about the GOAT showing up Kevin Mitchell and me: https://t.co/80vI8ZMawO pic.twitter.com/EVhVbHZ9wO

— Will Clark (@WillClark22) February 4, 2024

24 shouts out 24 🐐 @Mariners pic.twitter.com/RmVvxX0QAF

— SFGiants (@SFGiants) February 4, 2024

At 7:24 a.m., San Francisco Mayor London Breed officially proclaimed today -- 2/4/24 -- Willie Mays Day. Here's the report from City Hall and what S.F. and the @sfgiants are doing to celebrate the Say Hey Kid: https://t.co/8MyzBMillT via @sfchronicle

— John Shea (@JohnSheaHey) February 4, 2024

Will look at those when I get home. You know what my thought was when I saw this revived.

I think people have said this before, I should have prefaced with HE’S NOT DEAD

Vic Wertz, born February 9, 1925.

https://i.postimg.cc/8CkNFYp2/vic.jpg

Totally forgot till a friend's FB post reminded me: 93 today.

I was going to update this thread but I didn’t want you to think he died

Willie Mays was standing at the batting cage. I stuck my hand out. "I'm Jim Bouton."

“Oh sure,” he said. “Jim Bouton. I know you.

“You’ve always been one of my heroes,” he said. “When I was a kid, my brother and I always used to go up to the Polo Grounds to watch you play.”

"Now, why'd you have to go and say you came to see me when you were a kid?" Willie Mays said, his voice squeaky with mock anger.

"And you know something, Willie?" Tommy Davis said. "He's only thirty-five years old."

Mays groaned. "Why couldn't you just come over and say 'Hi'?" he said. "Now I feel like an old man."

Funny, he doesn’t look like an old man. Especially when he plays baseball.

RIP

What? Wow and the national game on Fox on Thursday.

RIP

I saw a note on Instagram posted by the Giants about how he couldn’t attend the game due to not being able to move around well, which I assumed was just his age, but yeah. What a life he had. RIP.

RIP. One of the true all times greats.

Love all these stories and memories. The game tomorrow is going to be intense.

I was Zooming last night with an internet friend (we've never met) from San Francisco who saw Mays all through his prime, going back to 1958, when he was five.

I think I have a 60s WM baseball card

Posnanski's Mays post went up today. It's less about Mays than trying to decide who is now the Greatest Living Player. I guess he wrote so much about Mays in The Baseball 100--Mays was #1--he didn't want to repeat himself.

He starts with the idea that Bonds is obviously the GLP, but eventually, and circuitously, settles on Griffey, which will no doubt raise the ire of many.

Gleaned one interesting thing from a quick skim. In '69, when the writers chose their greatest all-time and greatest living players lists, they moved Mays to RF so they could get him onto the living list:

RHP: Walter Johnson (All-Time); Bob Feller (Living--died in 2010)
LHP: Lefty Grove (All-Time); Lefty Grove (Living--died in 1975)
C: Mickey Cochrane (All-Time); Bill Dickey (Living--died in 1993)
1B: George Sisler (All-Time); George Sisler and Stan Musial (Living)
2B: Rogers Hornsby (All-Time); Charlie Gehringer (Living--died in 1993)
3B: Pie Traynor (All-Time); Pie Traynor (Living--died in 1972)
SS: Honus Wagner (All-Time); Joe Cronin (Living--died in 1984)
LF: Ty Cobb (All-Time); Ted Williams (Living--died in 2002)
CF Joe DiMaggio (All-Time); Joe DiMaggio (Living--died in 1999)
RF: Babe Ruth (All-Time); Willie Mays (Living--died in 2024)

"There’s a little bit to unpack here, particularly the fact that the writers put Willie Mays in rightfield to get him on the living team, which, you know, on the one hand, I get it, because having an all-time living baseball team without Willie Mays would have been ridiculous. On the other hand, listing Willie Mays as a rightfielder is like listing Leonardo Da Vinci as an auto mechanic. I’m sure he’d have been able to do one helluva tuneup, but it entirely misses the point."

Thinking about Jerry West and the NBA logo, this is a great idea.

https://www.tsn.ca/video/buster-olney-willie-mays-absolutely-should-be-new-mlb-logo~2943148

Haven't won since Mays passing. Down to 2 starters. This year's team just isn't any good, mediocre.

I need something else to do.

Wrong thread

from the old tyme baseball photos thread, h/t gyac

I follow former SI photographer Walter Iooss on IG (you should too) and he posted this pic he took of Willie Mays the other day on Mays’s 90th bday. Pull this picture out every time someone says “they didn’t have athletes then like we have now.” pic.twitter.com/y6buSb1o54

— Harry Arnett (@harryarnett) May 7, 2021

no idea what that last line of my post is doing there

Greil Marcus, of all people--he is from the Bay Area--got a long "Ask Greil" about Willie Mays that he responded to today. I'll only include the last bit of the question; I like his answer.

I'm sure as a Bay Area native, you have fond memories of Willie Mays, as do all baseball fans for his talents were wonderous, but whatever his civil rights battles were, they were mostly private, sad to say. —JAMES R STACHO

I imagine that in some part of his being, every day Willie Mays said to himself, not in these words, but in his own, I am my own revolution. How did he feel that night in 1963 when in the bottom of the 16-inning scoreless tie with Warren Spahn and Juan Marichal on the mound for every pitch he ended it with a home run? Oh, I feel so fine, I am so lucky to be allowed to play this wonderful game? Or was it, Take that, you fuckers. Go back down in the ground, you Klan killers. You’ll never catch me.

A lot of people saw that. A lot of people felt that. There’s no way to measure to what degree Willie Mays might have inspired the people at the Cleveland Summit to do what they did even if he didn’t do it, even if he thought, I had to do my service, go on and do yours--which I doubt.

(The Cleveland Summit being the famous gathering of Black athletes in 1967 to support Ali--not attended by Mays or anybody else from MLB.)

He may well have thought that. I was reading about how Henry “Hank” Aaron* and Jackie Robinson were angry that Mays never spoke out over the racism he and they faced. There’s this interview I always think of, from 2009, totally casual talk to young Giants players:

“My father told me no matter what anybody said, never to fight. Turn the other cheek. I’d call him up and he’d ask, “Did you fight today?’ Back then, you had to make sure you were bigger than those people who called you names. They called you all kinds of names. But I knew for me to get ahead, I had to take all that kind of stuff. Every time somebody called me a name, I hit the ball.’’

Finally watched the Reggie interview earlier today--fantastic. (I had to laugh at a couple of side issues: when Reggie included A-Rod on his list of all-time greats, wondered if Jeter did a slow burn; and when Ortiz brought up the HOF, wondered the same about A-Rod.)

"I am my own revolution"--love that.

Any Black player pre-'68 or so had a second overriding fact to deal with aside from society in general: baseball was far more conservative than basketball or football.

Re the Reggie interview: knowing how much all the A's hated Charlie Finley when it came to anything related to money, I thought it was gracious of Jackson to mention Finley walking the team out when his country club wouldn't let Jackson attend a ceremony (they relented).