Master Index of Archived Threads


Willie Mays at 90

G-Fafif May 05 2021 05:21 AM

Willie Mays turns 90 on May 6 (Thursday). His biographer has a marvelous essay in the Times. He was particularly close to Seaver, who as a college player noticed that Mays didn't button the top of his jersey, so Seaver never buttoned the top of his. They became teammates when Mays was traded to the Mets in 1972, and before each game Seaver started, Mays asked him how he was going to pitch each hitter. As the game progressed, Seaver discreetly signaled to Mays in center what adjustments he was making on the mound, and Mays repositioned himself accordingly. https://www.nytimes.com/2021/05/05/sports/baseball/willie-mays-90.html

G-Fafif May 06 2021 10:32 AM Re: Willie Mays at 90

[tweet]https://twitter.com/mlbnetwork/status/1390317724191055874[/tweet]

G-Fafif May 06 2021 10:37 AM Re: Willie Mays at 90

A Polar Bear greeting within. [tweet]https://twitter.com/mlb/status/1390307984761364480[/tweet]

Johnny Lunchbucket May 06 2021 11:20 AM Re: Willie Mays at 90

I liked that happy birthday vid

kcmets May 06 2021 12:48 PM Re: Willie Mays at 90

One of my top five favorite icons in sports. Happy birthday!

Willets Point May 06 2021 02:41 PM Re: Willie Mays at 90

Holy cow, Cal looks ancient! This video/celebration feels really big in light of all the Hall of Famer's we've lost in the past year.

G-Fafif May 07 2021 11:24 AM Re: Willie Mays at 90

Albert and Willie; Willie and Ralph; and so forth.

Frayed Knot May 08 2021 09:35 AM Re: Willie Mays at 90

So it seems that Nancy Pelosi, eager to join the chorus wishing fellow San Franciscan Willie Mays a happy 90th, tweeted out a picture of her next to Willie ... McCovey!!! Oooops

Edgy MD May 08 2021 09:39 AM Re: Willie Mays at 90

Willets Point wrote: Holy cow, Cal looks ancient! This video/celebration feels really big in light of all the Hall of Famer's we've lost in the past year. Every time I report to jury duty, there are civic posters on the walls from days gone by, reminding of us how long it's been since anybody gave enough of a shit to redecorate the jury room. Among them is a poster of a 1983-ish Cal with brown, curls flopping down all around, underscoring for us the importance of reading.

Frayed Knot May 08 2021 03:29 PM Re: Willie Mays at 90

In what seemed like a very short span of time following his retirement, Cal went from looking like an athlete in his prime to resembling a slightly younger (though considerably taller) version of my then 60-ish y/o Uncle Keith.

metsmarathon May 09 2021 09:23 PM Re: Willie Mays at 90

cal ripken looks like the mayor of a medium-sized town who really, really wishes people thought of it as a small city.

Edgy MD May 10 2021 05:22 AM Re: Willie Mays at 90

If you play it a little loose with definitions, that's not an entirely inaccurate definition of who he is. A divorce and new marriage in his late fifties really seemed to age him rapidly overnight. I imagine his mother being kidnapped a few years earlier didn't help either.

Benjamin Grimm May 10 2021 05:32 AM Re: Willie Mays at 90

Back to Willie Mays: https://www.mercurynews.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/05/BNG-L-GIANTS-0508-6.jpg?w=1074>

Edgy MD May 10 2021 05:39 AM Re: Willie Mays at 90

And will that car be coming by Citi?

batmagadanleadoff May 10 2021 05:55 AM Re: Willie Mays at 90

Benjamin Grimm wrote: Back to Willie Mays: https://www.mercurynews.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/05/BNG-L-GIANTS-0508-6.jpg?w=1074> I'll bet that most of the fans in the stands were born after Willie had retired. Mays retired almost 50 years ago.

Frayed Knot May 10 2021 08:18 AM Re: Willie Mays at 90

Edgy MD wrote: And will that car be coming by Citi? If it does I highly doubt it will be with Willie in it.

Willets Point May 10 2021 08:46 AM Re: Willie Mays at 90

=batmagadanleadoff post_id=63781 time=1620647705 user_id=68] I'll bet that most of the fans in the stands were born after Willie had retired. Mays retired almost 50 years ago.

Willie Mays' last appearance in the 1973 World Series was literally a month before I was born.

G-Fafif May 10 2021 09:17 AM Re: Willie Mays at 90

Willie Mays taking a 90th birthday lap in 2021 is the chronological equivalent of Babe Ruth hypothetically doing the same in 1985, Christy Mathewson in 1970, Walter Johnson in 1977, Lou Gehrig in 1993, Hank Greenberg in 2001, Mel Ott in 1999, Ty Cobb in 1976, Jackie Robinson in 2009, Gil Hodges in 2014, Roberto Clemente in 2024 (and Jacob deGrom in 2078). The longevity that allows younger generations a glimpse of a living, breathing all-time great is an incredible gift to baseball. Willie looks pretty good, too.

Edgy MD May 10 2021 09:40 AM Re: Willie Mays at 90

Ted Williams in 2006. JFK in 2007.

Benjamin Grimm May 10 2021 09:46 AM Re: Willie Mays at 90

=G-Fafif post_id=63796 time=1620659863 user_id=55] Willie Mays taking a 90th birthday lap in 2021 is the chronological equivalent of Babe Ruth hypothetically doing the same in 1985, Christy Mathewson in 1970, Walter Johnson in 1977, Lou Gehrig in 1993, Hank Greenberg in 2001, Mel Ott in 1999, Ty Cobb in 1976, Jackie Robinson in 2009, Gil Hodges in 2014, Roberto Clemente in 2024 (and Jacob deGrom in 2078).

Wow! Interesting perspective.

Willets Point May 10 2021 10:09 AM Re: Willie Mays at 90

Edgy MD wrote: Ted Williams in 2006. JFK in 2007. One retired as an aged ballplayer just a few weeks before the other was elected as a very young president.

G-Fafif May 10 2021 10:09 AM Re: Willie Mays at 90

Podcast host Jay Horwitz recently got together with Orlando Cepeda, Ed Kranepool and Mays's personal scribe John Shea (with whom he published 24) to celebrate Willie. Jay grew up a Giants fan in Jersey and didn't switch to the Mets until they paid him to. https://youtu.be/N8rN3_12amg

Lefty Specialist May 10 2021 07:01 PM Re: Willie Mays at 90

I bet 90-year-old Willie would have had a better offensive April than Francisco Lindor.

Marshmallowmilkshake May 10 2021 07:19 PM Re: Willie Mays at 90 Edited 1 time(s), most recently on Jul 09 2021 12:39 PM

I was a Mets-obsessed 9 year old when Mays retired, but I remember watching "Willie Mays Night," and hearing him say, "Willie, say goodbye to America" as if it was yesterday.

The Hot Corner May 14 2021 08:25 PM Re: Willie Mays at 90

Willie was, is, and always will be the man.

G-Fafif Jul 09 2021 10:58 AM Re: Willie Mays at 90

Steve Rushin on the Willie Mays of Willie Mayses. Where are they now, these giants with a lowercase g? In the 21st century, when baseball is deep in the shadow of other amusements, it can be difficult to fathom. But 70 years ago, when he made his debut with the Giants, and for the next 18 years at least, Willie Mays was not merely a transcendent baseball player, like Mike Trout—or transcendent athlete, like Michael Jordan—but a transformative figure in the national psyche, a skeleton key that opened almost any door into American life. Peerless on the field, Mays was more often paired with other artists, many of whom measured themselves against him, and almost always found themselves wanting. Disgorged from the Deep South, in glorious full bloom in the 1950s, inducted into the U.S. Army in his white-hot prime, holed up in California in the '60s and in artistic decline by '70: In all of these ways, Mays was twinned with Elvis Presley, both men eventually finding themselves, in middle age, employed by casinos. By 1970, Presley and Mays were locked into memory forever, with an enduring body of work behind them, and moments of greatness still possible on any given night. Elvis opened the Las Vegas epoch of his career at the International Hotel in '70. This was the High Renaissance of Late Elvis—when the King was all jumpsuits, sideburns and sunglasses. But he was still fit and handsome, Elvis in excelsis. Cary Grant was in the opening-night audience. So was filmmaker Denis Sanders, making the MGM documentary Elvis: That's the Way It Is, in which he interviewed a young Presley fan in a powder-blue cardigan and eyeglasses so thick as to appear opaque. The man, about 30—a teenager in the late 1950s—told Sanders that the enduring appeal of Elvis is that “he can do it all.” That is, he can sing, dance, act, tell stories and just stand there, looking like a million dollars, with a humility that conveys authenticity. “He is,” says this unidentified Elvis fan, “the Willie Mays of entertainment.” But Willie Mays, like Elvis, was also supremely entertaining, and Willie Mays, unlike Elvis, was indisputably Willie Mays, making Willie Mays, even more than Elvis Presley, the Willie Mays of entertainment. https://www.si.com/mlb/2021/07/09/willie-mays-where-are-they-now-2021

MFS62 Jul 09 2021 11:14 AM Re: Willie Mays at 90

He was good enough to make a Brooklyn Dodger fan like me grudgingly admit he was good. Later

dinosaur jesus Jul 09 2021 11:16 AM Re: Willie Mays at 90

What does Elvis have to do with anything? I love Elvis, but how does he compare in any meaningful way to Wilie Mays, except in being very famous at the same time? Is there a corollary to Godwin's law that says if you know you're not supposed to talk about Nazis you'll end up talking about Elvis instead?

Edgy MD Jul 09 2021 11:18 AM Re: Willie Mays at 90

Well, he tries to draw the parallel with detailed points.

Johnny Lunchbucket Jul 09 2021 01:44 PM Re: Willie Mays at 90

Rushin is an incredibly clever writer. I like to interpret how he pieces together his stuff. I'd guess it somehow started with that quote and then he built around it backwards and forwards, found a few more details (they both worked in casinos) and the parallels, expressed them with this inner singsong-y joke track that's embedded in everything he writes and imparts the message that you needn't take the comparison too seriously, but its something this one funny looking guy did. That is incredible skill.

Frayed Knot Jul 09 2021 03:23 PM Re: Willie Mays at 90

I personally think he brought up Elvis just to get the Elvis in excelsis line in, and if he did it was totally worth it.

dinosaur jesus Jul 09 2021 03:53 PM Re: Willie Mays at 90

Edgy MD wrote: Well, he tries to draw the parallel with detailed points. But the points are meaningless. They're too specious even to be clever. Mays went into the army as a hugely promising young player and came out as a great one. Elvis went in at the peak of his career and came out as someone who made shitty movies--and still made great music, but only when he felt like it. For Mays "holed up in California" just means he played in San Francisco. For Elvis it means he was stuck making those movies. For Mays "artistic decline" means he was an aging athlete but still a hell of a player into his forties. For Elvis it means he'd got his head and body so fucked up he could barely function most of the time. For Mays "employed by casinos" means he took some easy money when he couldn't play baseball anymore. For Elvis it meant he played music for people--the one point where Mays comes off sadder in comparison. They were both transformative. But in completely different ways. And great as Elvis was, I think the comparison is demeaning to Mays, who never betrayed his talent.

G-Fafif Jul 09 2021 05:35 PM Re: Willie Mays at 90

Another passage. He was everywhere, in uniform, because baseball was still in the national water supply, even as late as 1967, when Mays played in a celebrity softball game at Dodger Stadium. The game was televised in prime time on NBC, with Dodgers announcer Vin Scully on play-by-play and comedian Jerry Lewis on color. In the fourth inning, while facing actor Dale Robertson, Mays hit a towering fly to left field, where Woody Allen called off center fielder Peter Falk and made the catch. The Brooklyn-born Allen, 16 when Mays made the majors, would describe the moment in later interviews as a dream come to life. “Why is life worth living?” Allen's character, screenwriter Isaac Davis, asks in the 1979 film Manhattan. “That's a very good question. Well, there are certain things I guess that make it worthwhile. Like what? O.K., I would say, what, Groucho Marx, to name one thing, and Willie Mays, and the second movement of the Jupiter Symphony, and uh, Louis Armstrong, recording of ‘Potato Head Blues,' uh, Swedish movies naturally. Sentimental Education by Flaubert. Uh, Marlon Brando, Frank Sinatra, those incredible apples and pears by Cézanne ...” Deciding who is the reigning cultural colossus of any age is always a multiple-choice exam. But the possible answers are not infinite. “Some men define a generation,” the sportswriter Jimmy Cannon wrote in 1969. “It may be the Beatles or Lenny Bernstein or Frank Sinatra or Picasso or Willie Mays or Wilt Chamberlain or Marlon Brando or Tennessee Williams.” Or Bob Dylan, who, like the rest of TV-watching America, saw Green Bay Packers quarterback Bart Starr in a commercial in the early 1960s. A young man was applying Brylcreem at a locker room sink when Starr intervened: “Sam,” Starr asked, “You still using that greasy kid stuff?” Old Bart knew what Young Sam didn't: “Vitalis keeps your hair neat all day without grease.” Brylcreem and Vitalis were hair-care products for white men. “Out of the shower comes the football man, with a bottle of oil in his hand,” Dylan sang in “I Shall Be Free” in 1964. “Greasy kid stuff. What I wanna know, Mr. Football Man, is what do you do about Willie Mays, Martin Luther King [and the Nigerian drummer Babtunde] Olatunji?

G-Fafif Aug 13 2021 07:49 PM Re: Willie Mays at 90

Late entrant in the general election? [tweet]https://twitter.com/emkittel/status/1426355070736781316[/tweet]

Frayed Knot Aug 13 2021 07:54 PM Re: Willie Mays at 90

HEY, the NY Governor's chair is up for grabs.