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Willie Mays, Role Model

Edgy DC Nov 26 2010 09:57 PM

One can fill a whole book with columns begging fne athletes to retire, lest they end up as pathetic as Willie Mays at the end of his career. I hate these columns.

HahnSolo Nov 26 2010 10:09 PM Re: Willie Mays, Role Model

I was 5-6 when Willie came back to NY. Was his play really as embarrassing as all these columns about him would indicate?

G-Fafif Nov 27 2010 02:53 AM Re: Willie Mays, Role Model

Mays was still Mays, just less so, and unlike Favre he wasn't the focal point of his franchise. He was thrilling at any age. And he didn't fall down every time he took the field as Gwen Knapp would have you believe. Also, he didn't sext anybody.

Frayed Knot Nov 27 2010 06:19 AM Re: Willie Mays, Role Model

HahnSolo wrote: I was 5-6 when Willie came back to NY. Was his play really as embarrassing as all these columns about him would indicate? On a windy day during the WS Mays mis-judged a fly ball through the late afternoon sun and fell trying to re-adjust. That 'incident' almost immediately became a symbol for how Mays was no longer MAYS as if that hadn't occurred to everyone already and as if that moment was the reason he decided to call it quits even though his impending retirement had been announced months earlier. The bigger problem is that that one play has hung around as the icon for EVERY athlete who stayed too long to the point where it's cited by mediots who not only never saw it but never saw Mays in any form and now think he was stumbling around like a drunk on a routine basis for the entire final season.

batmagadanleadoff Nov 27 2010 10:02 AM Re: Willie Mays, Role Model

Mays was done in '73. He was an awful player, pratfall or no pratfall. You could see that he was done just by observing, even if you didn't know what his stats were. No shame in that. Everyone's done after awhile. But there's no need to make the '73 Mays out to be more than he was either. .211 is still .211, whether it's Mays' .211 or Lute Barnes' .211. Are we talking about Mays as a Met or Mays as a legend? Because if we're talking the legend of Mays, he's still a legend, and will always be a legend. I see nothing wrong with the media replaying Mays' WS fall as evidence that by '73, Mays was done. It's easier and more effective than to show Mays flailing feebly 55 times over the course of his last season at pitches he would've crushed a few years earlier. Besides, that video doesn't exist anymore anyway ... lost or destroyed. Or stolen and in the possession of private collectors.

Edgy DC Nov 27 2010 10:17 AM Re: Willie Mays, Role Model

Yeah, there's no doubt it was a bad year, but it was his last season his only remotely bad one. What would they have the guy do? He was very good in 1972 and when injuries and ineffectiveness undercut 1973, he announced his retirement, accepted a part-time role, and gave what he could to a team who needed anything they could get to fight for a championship. At the end there, he was still probably their best defensive option.

batmagadanleadoff Nov 27 2010 10:23 AM Re: Willie Mays, Role Model

Yeah, there's no doubt it was a bad year, but it was his last season his only remotely bad one. What would they have the guy do? He was very good in 1972 and when injuries and ineffectiveness undercut 1973, he announced his retirement, accepted a part-time role, and gave what he could to a team who needed anything they could get to fight for a championship. At the end there, he was still probably their best defensive option. I agree with you. I also don't hold it against Mays that he played in '73 (or any faded legend finishing out his career under similar circumstances). So long as there's a team offering the player playing time, the player has the right to accept the offer. OE: I'd say that Hahn was the better defensive option.

G-Fafif Nov 27 2010 08:26 PM Re: Willie Mays, Role Model

What's overlooked in the easy "Mays didn't know when to quit" formulation is Mays had already announced his retirement before he "fell down in center field". If only he hadn't gotten a key hit against Cincinnati in the deciding game of the NLCS and helped the Mets to get to the World Series. Then he never would have fallen down and nobody would instantly used him as the example of what not to do. Henry Aaron didn't much have it going on in 1976 but nobody mentions it because the Brewers played no games in the national spotlight (and he DH'd). If the 82-79 Mets had gone 79-82, Mays as a Met would be mostly remembered for his return in 1972 and his speech in September. Somebody would look up his .211 average and think, oh, I guess he was about done -- like most 42-year-old legends before year-round conditioning kicked in.

RealityChuck Nov 28 2010 09:43 AM Re: Willie Mays, Role Model

While it's true Mays hit only .211 in 1972, their regular CF, Don Hahn, hit only .229. So using Mays was not a big drop off. Mays also had three times the number of home runs, a better OBP (.303 vs. .285), better slugging (.344 vs .290), and a better OPS+ (81 vs. 76). Mays was certainly near the end of the road -- and he knew it -- but the Mets didn't have anyone better. If Hahn had gotten Mays's ABs, the team would not have won the pennant. (And Dave Schneck and Rich Chiles, the other center fielders for the team that year, made Hahn look like Mays in his prime. Jim Gosger had a higher BA than all of them, but his OPS was worse than Mays, too.) This also doesn't factor in that Mays was a box office draw, deteriorating skills or not. Mays was a reasonable choice to stay with the team This wasn't a case of Mays hanging on too long. It was a team that needed him resigning him because he would draw fans and would be better than any of their other options.

batmagadanleadoff Nov 28 2010 10:20 AM Re: Willie Mays, Role Model

Nobody on this thread wrote that Mays stuck around for too long, or that he should've retired some time before he actually did.