Reviews

Willie Mays, Hero to Other Players

6/21/2024

Bill Wakefield pitched only one season in the major leagues – 1964 – but he finds himself tied to Willie Mays, who died the other day at 93.
We both got to see Willie Mays up close – me as a young sportswriter, realizing that Mays was uncomfortable with the new breed of mostly-New-York writers (The Chipmunks) who asked him layered questions. Willie was not the bubbly young star described by the writers who had covered him back in his Polo Grounds days, when he was a kid out of Alabama.
Wakefield was a rook out of Stanford University in 1964. He saw Willie Mays at 60 feet, 6 inches – close enough to justify the Willie Mays baseball card he had treasured as a kid in Kansas City, Mo.
I was not surprised this week when I received an email from Wakefield, talking about 1964. The two of us have Casey Stengel and Hot Rod Kanehl and Willie Mays in common,
“Willie's passing is being covered with proper respect by the finest sports writers in the nation. I agree with all their tributes. I cannot add to their wonderful admiring thoughts,” wrote Wakefield, now retired in the Bay Area.
“But…my modest contribution to my friends,” Wakefield continued. “Everyone has a personal take on what a hero's passing at 93 means to them.
“1951 - Card below - Butch and I ( age 10) open baseball card bubble gum packages on our front porch in KC. "Hey here's a Willie Mays - " My observation - Willie is EXACTLY 10 years older than me. Willie 5/1931   Billy W. 5/1941. Thanks to my dear mom Bobbie -- didn't get thrown out and I've still got the card!!!!!!”
(GV: Mothers get the rap for tossing out old cards and autographs, in the name of order.)
Wakefield continued: “1961 - I'm playing first year with Cardinals -- Lancaster Red Roses -- I'm 20 and Willie is 30. I wonder - maybe at some point I'll face Willie.”
Then it was 1964, and Wakefield was a rook with the hideous but amusing Mets, studying Casey up close.
The man on the trading card materialized in Wakefield’s life on May 15, 1964, as the Mets flew west for a weekend series with the Giants. They actually had a 4-2 lead in the eighth inning when….but let the great and invaluable website, Retrosheet, tell the story:
https://www.retrosheet.org/boxesetc/1964/B05150SFN1964.htm
There is no suggestion that Willie nearly hit one out – just a fly ball to Jim Hickman. Wakefield got 6 outs against a terrific team.

Wakefield started against the man on the playing card on May 31 in Shea Stadium. This time he gave up a run-scoring single to Mays in the first inning, and was removed after two innings. The game went on so long that Casey was ruminating about putting Larry Bearnarth in the game -- not a bad idea, except that the two college boys had already pitched in that game.
Bearnarth and Wakefield did the most logical thing – dressing in civilian clothes and slipping into the stands and sipping a cold beer and witnessing manager Alvin Dark switching Mays to shortstop for the 10th, 11th and 12th inning. (Dark had used Mays for one inning the previous season: https://www.cbssports.com/mlb/news/photo-of-the-day-willie-mays-shortstop/
The second game in 1964 went 23 innings and, of course, the Giants won.

Wakefield would see Mays again in August in Shea Stadium:

“I throw Willie a good sinker ( I thought) down and in ( It WASN'T a low hard slider!!)   -- he hits it out off the scoreboard in right center …inside-out swing . Loud LOUD!! crowd cheer -- Mets fans / Willie fans!!” No shame in being stung by Mays, who would finish with 660 home runs.
Wakefield’s list of Mays sightings continued to 1973:
“I play in an Old-Timers game at Shea -- vivid memory -- I'm the old timer and Willie is still active player (his last year) for the Mets. Pre-game Mets Clubhouse exchange - DiMaggio (The DiMaggio) is dressing next to me -- Willie comes over. Big smile.”
"Hey Joe" - and I get a head nod!!”
“Willie is 42   I'm 32.”
“2024 --   I still have my Willie card. Willie passed away at 93.
“RIP, Willie. A sad day. My hero.”
Some of the greatest players ever – Ted Williams, for example – speculated that Mays was the best.
This judgment certainly came out in the stirring obituary by Richard Goldstein for The New York Times:puhttps://www.nytimes.com/2024/06/18/sports/willie-mays-dead.html
And there was a lovely column by Kurt Streeter, the last NYT sports columnist before that newspaper entered a compact with some sports website. I had no issue with Streeter describing Mays as stumbling with the Mets in the 1973 World Series. Bless his heart, Willie stayed active into athletic old age, and he lived to be 93 – and people remember him for “the catch” in the 1954 World Series.
https://www.nytimes.com/2024/06/18/us/willie-mays-death-baseball-legacy.html
Bill Wakefield can proudly display his Willie Mays card, and he can recall Willie’s three innings at shortstop in that monumental game in 1964.
I did not remember Mays’ four career innings at shortstop but they must have invaded my brain, because I once wrote about picking an all-star team in the mythical Game to Save the World.
As I recall, my choices for outfield were Ted Williams, Henry Aaron and Babe Ruth (with apologies to the likes of Roberto Clemente, Joe DiMaggio, Stan Musial and Mickey Mantle.)
And what about Willie Mays? Just like Alvin Dark,I put Willie at shortstop, on the theory that Mays, whether at center field or shortstop, was the greatest baseball player ever.
                         ***
On the 50th anniversary of Willie Mays’ immortal catch, I wrote about how Arnold Hano wrote a slim masterpiece of a book about the game:
https://www.nytimes.com/2004/09/29/sports/baseball/hazy-sunshine-vivid-memory.html?_r=0

                        ###

Andy Tansey

6/22/2024 12:35:10 am

Thank you, George. I was looking forward to this. Even as a Mickey heart-throbber, and born in '59 after the Giants were long gone, I realized that Willie was the greatest ever. Some might argue otherwise with apples to oranges comparisons in light of changes in the game over the years, but I would snap back that those apples to oranges comparisons are invalid. Mays was the greatest. I remember the days between in the 80's when Rickey Henderson wore 24 for the Yankees, as proud and arrogant as he seemed, an homage to Mays.

But I love the baseball card theme. I didn't take care of mine, but I once had "The Willies," one of those special promotion cards with Mays and McCovey in the picture. A baseball card had a posed portrait on one side and all the relevant stats - which stats remain relevant to me to this day, though not of the baseball metrics sort - on the reverse. I shrug at collectors (even though one of my clients believes his collection is of value, but he's a Mets fan), but I loved having the card about a favorite player in hand.

Willie Mays played the game of baseball in its fullest sense, unlike so many excellent and talented athletes today whose roles are limited according to baseball metrics. Maybe we've gotten too smart, but baseball wisdom tells us, Willie was the greatest.

Finally, thanks to good writers, I knew The Catch at an early age simply through the written description. In those days, baseball captured your imagination even in the printed word of a good writer.

George Vecsey

6/22/2024 05:52:33 pm

Andy, baseball is the best sport for re-creating beauty and spontaneity. Arnold Hano went to the 1954 World Series game on a whim...and was keeping score in his program, when he saw Mays make the catch. Then he started scribbling notes in the margins of the program, just to retain his writer's conceits. In baseball players are in prescribed positions, more or less, and it is possible to understand what they did, given where they started....other sports are more fluid. GV

Alan D. Levine

6/22/2024 12:39:02 am

Nothing to add that hasn't been said. But it's true. He was the best ballplayer I ever saw play the game.
It has been quite a week for deaths of people who played a role in defining the world I've lived in. Francoise Hardy, Anouk Aimee, Donald Sutherland and , most of all, The Say Hey Kid.

6/22/2024 05:55:27 pm

Alan, the photos of Aimee took my breath away. I remember watching her in "A Man and a Woman" -- the music, the cars, La Belle France, and she outdid them all. Sutherland was a baseball fan...I remember getting a nice note from a Montreal broadcaster saying how much he and Sutherland enjoyed a certain column. Very cool. GV

Randolph

6/22/2024 06:24:41 am

Thank you, George.
I played a lot of baseball growing up in the mountains of West Virginia. My two older brothers taught me how to field a grounder, catch a fly ball and hit.
But Willie Mays was always there with us. No one ever wrote about it, but he was always playing ball with us in those coal fields long ago.
Thanks for making me remember
R

6/22/2024 06:05:22 pm

Randy, conversely, I saw all those photos of Willie playing stickball in the Harlem streets. I don't know how often he did, or whether it was hype, but stickball was the city version. in Queens, we used a broomstick and a pink ball (Spaldeen) against a painted strike zone on a brick school wall. But in more dense areas, they played in the street....MY wife remembers Cal Abrams of the Dodgers playing stickball in her neighborhood ..He was from Brooklyn and lived in Nassau County for a while....

Roy Edelsack

6/22/2024 08:07:16 am

Two memories:
1-May, 1957. My father takes me to the Polo Grounds for my first major league game. I'm nine years old. It's Giants/Dodgers. Ruben Gomez vs Sal Maglie. We are sitting behind third base. Early in the game Willie Mays doubles but tries to stretch it into a triple. He's running right at us. Hat flying off. And he beats the throw in a cloud of dust. Most exciting thing I ever saw. I'm instantly a Willie Mays fan and a Giants fan.
2-It's the year before. With family in Birmingham we spend every summer there. My Uncle takes me to my first professional baseball game: Barons vs New Orleans Pelicans. We're sitting in the grandstand at Rickwood. I notice that way out beyond the right field wall there are some rickety old seats. As an eight year old I was thinking that it might be cool to sit out there. I ask my uncle about who gets to sit there. He tells me that I certainly would not want to sit there.

"Those are the colored bleachers."

Andy Tansey

6/22/2024 09:53:54 am

Wow, Roy, this is resounding. A big believer in the impressionability of boys in that age range (I've confessed the scars of a 10-year-old Yankees fan living in Queens in 1969), and a lover of close baserunning plays, I think I get it.

The Birmingham story . . . well told . . . I am at a loss.

Andy Tansey

6/22/2024 11:16:45 am

Sorry for too many posts, but I meant to ask, if you're keeping a scorecard, how do you score "double-attempted-stretch-to-triple-successfully"? "=+SB" ?

Edwin W. Martin

6/22/2024 03:23:39 pm

This Brooklyn Dodger fan admired Wllie, despite threat of excommunication
In 1953, young newlyweds moved to Tuscaloosa, Ala from Pa and NY
It was Apartheid squared
Our landlords, sweet people, sat on their porch and listened to the Birminham Barons, (not Black).

As we became friends I told Mrs. E about "Jackie" and his talents. She replied that she would stop listening if the Barons got black players.

I was stunned, and asked and she replied that she grew up there, Catholics just were allowed to teach in the public schools.

Say Hey was a Giant but he was a veteran of Alabama.

6/22/2024 06:06:44 pm

Roy, I agree -- a whole childhood captured in a slide. Nice memory. GV

Lonnie Shalton

6/22/2024 10:16:20 am

Bill Wakefield and George Vecsey. Two vintage pros who feel and communicate the soul of baseball.

6/22/2024 11:43:02 am

Lonnie, thank you. Your Hot Stove League Post 256 news spot on about Willie. Your site is one of the best about Negro League BB in KC. Plus your music selections are great. Keep
Posting. GV

6/22/2024 06:12:32 pm

Andy, getting to 3B? three horizontal lines in the scorebook.
If it's a steal of third, two horizontal lines and an SB.
Ed: I still see signs of divisions like that....politically, etc. It never went away. Regarding ballpark divisions, lot of photos of Babe Ruth chatting with Black fans in front of segregated stands. He hated the (false) rumor that he was mixed race....but his gregarious side led him to chat with Black fans.

Bill Wakefield

6/24/2024 06:23:10 pm

George - Does our "Vintage" status mean an appreciation in our card values like my high school ride - the vintage Red 57 Chevy rag top?? I appreciate being mentioned in the same sentence as you, Lonnie, Casey, Hot Rod and Willie!! Throw in Yogi and we've got the 1964 baseball table filled. Best, Wake

Walter Schwartz

6/22/2024 12:35:10 pm

Long after growing up in Queens as a baseball fan in the '50's, it now seems to me that neither I nor most of my buddies fully appreciated or respected the New York Giants or Willie Mays the way we passionately adored and contrasted the great Yankee or Dodger teams and stars of that era like Berra or Campanella (Who was the "greatest" catcher?) or Reese vs. Rizzuto (The "best" shortstop?)

I suppose that was natural, based upon the fact that most of our neighbors' parents were first generation houseowners who had moved from Brooklyn or Bronx apartments and carried over their loyalties from Ebbets Field or Yankee Stadium into Jamaica Estates, Fresh Meadows or surrounding neighborhoods, instilling the same "values" into their children.

Hence, the Giants and their stars were more or less third class citizens with bleacher seats in dead centerfield when the Yanks and Brooks squared off in the World Series nearly early fall. And when it came to comparing centerfielders, the baseball cards were stacked because in New York, Mantle played for 18 seasons and Snider for a dozen, while Willie was in the Polo Grounds only from 1951 to 1958, with 1 1/2 years off in the military.

So it took some of us slow learners awhile longer to fully recognize what Willie did at bat, in the field, on the base paths and for the sport. Truly aMAYSing!

Thanks, George, for bringing Willie home again and for keeping us young. (And I loved checking out that simple old box score: How could we ever have envisioned Duke Snider and Don Larsen playing in the same game for the same team, no less the Giants--in 1964--and against the New York Mets!)

6/22/2024 06:16:18 pm

Chief, true, baseball scrambles old rivalries. I remember taking my son, age 7 or 8, into the Phillies clubhouse after a game, to visit my friend, Coach Ruben Amaro. There were Bud Harrelson and Pete Rose, 1973 combatants, now grizzled old teammates, chatting away.
And yes, so many of our classmates in Jamaica High were from Brooklyn neighborhoods particularly. They were so nostalgic --Brooklyn Roads. (Neil Diamond captured it perfectly.)

Irwin Sollinger

6/22/2024 01:19:39 pm

Andy Pesky saw me in the hall of JHS and said that his dad had 2 tickets to the series and not a serious scholar I skipped out walked down to Hillside and took the train to the hated Polo Grounds...
That catch and throw not my detention from Mr. Caro was breathtaking, Some things are worth remembering

6/22/2024 06:18:11 pm

Irwin, good on you. Mr. Caro, stumpy old dean of boys, used to chase wayward youths through Goose Pond, bring them to justice. GV

Altenir Silva

6/22/2024 02:06:26 pm

Great story, George. A dream came true for Bill Wakefield. Mr. Mays will always be an inspiration for all. These pieces on baseball are always wonderful. Thank you for sharing them, and have a good summer.
Best, Altenir

6/22/2024 06:22:45 pm

Altenir, you know the US so well..baseball in those days was the prime dream -- making the major leagues. young players would sit in the locker room and marvel that they were sharing it with older stars they had worshiped back in the neighborhood. Fact is, as a young writer, I enjoyed being in the pressbox with Jimmy Cannon, Dick Young, people I used to read,..GV

Altenir Silva

6/22/2024 09:18:00 pm

Another great story in your link with the article you wrote for The New York Times about Craig Liddle and Willie Mays' glove. What I really appreciate about the baseball world is its respect for the past.
Best, Altenir

Jim Henneman

6/22/2024 04:47:34 pm

George....what a wonderful collection of stories/memories! Equally impressed that you're technically able to link it all together. Way beyond my capabilities.

Being mostly confined to AL coverage, it's always been a regret not to have seen Willie in his prime.

Thanks for this ollection.

6/22/2024 06:33:04 pm

Jim, you played the game and also wrote about it, and your expertise always came through. May I note that the pressbox in the Baltimore ballpark was named for you, this past year, Congratulations. It is true that in the old days, writers and fans were somewhat limited by seeing mostly the players in the 8-team leagues, not 10 until 1961-62. The Yankees dominated life in the AL. Brooklyn to some degree in the NL. I remember Sid Hartman in Minnesota asking me how we younger NY writers could enjoy a losing team like the Mets. I remember being with the Yankees and laughing at news that Hot Rod Kanehl of the Mets had celebrated getting hit by a pitch with the bases loaded -- worth $25 from Casey, as I recall. The Mets loosened everybody up. Then again, I loved going to Baltimore with the Yankees and having crabcakes in the pressbox...and the orange and black uniforms of the O's. And big-time BB reporters like....Jim Henneman, Best GV

Jim Henneman

6/23/2024 08:47:23 pm

George...thanks for the kind words. You outdid yourself . The Press Box honor beyond any imagination and I was especially honored that our mutual friend Lee Lowenfish was among those who came in for the ceremony. Fortunate to have great friends...and memories!

Bruce

6/23/2024 08:40:37 am

george,

another fine piece and tho, a mantle guy as you know, no argument about mays being the greatest tho the mick might've been for a few seasons.

i saw mays play one summer weekend in montreal in 1969 when the giants invaded montreal at jarry park to play les expos.

i was 19 and there was a guy in dundas who organized an excursion in a rickety old school bus for the 400 mile drive.

talk about a foretaste of eternity.....school bus and no toilet.

it was my second visit to la belle province. i'd been two years before during the windup for expo '67. the world fair and the year of canada's centennial as a, sort of, real country.

love having quebec in canada. a taste of the canadian version of french and a whole european vibe.....quebec city especially.

the giants were in town.

some great players on that team.

marichal pitched, mcovey and hart were there too.

if memory serves mays hit a triple and was charged with an error when he let a ground ball slip under his glove. i remember he looked up to see the runner and oops.....

le grande orange was the expos' star.

George Vecsey

6/23/2024 09:16:13 am

Bruce, thank you for the lovely post, You must be a journalist.
I covered the first game at Parc Jarry....snowpiles in the narrow side streets of Montreal. Cardinals....defending league champs....park being gussied up -- paint -- in hours before game. I went down the RF line during BP, chatted with fans. You know what they talked about: Jackie Robinson, 1946, Quebec's warm reception. The Robinsons never forgot! I miss Montreal...the name comes up when BB discusses moves and expansion. Best, GV

Ed. Martin

6/23/2024 12:58:19 pm

George, Bruce. In the first years of this century, (sounds really old, huh?) Peggy and I began spending the summers in Magog, QC, about 75 miles east of Montreal in the beautiful hill and valley, L’Estrie.

In 2093 or 2004 we went to an Expo game, (Vlad Guerrero and brother) all players I recall. The call of Jackie beckoned me, but, the Expos then played in Olympic Stadium, not Jarry Field. A year or two later they were in DC.
I don’t recall game, not really why we were there. I do recall finding a lunch cafe serving Poutine, called Poutine in its name. Poutine has become an annual treat, once a year for this old guy watching his diet.
Poutine is the “Quebec National Dish” —crispy French fries, covered with gravy and pieces of white curds of cheese. Much to my surprise it’s delicious.

We really like Montreal and Canadians, try it you’ll like it.

Bruce

6/23/2024 03:46:28 pm

george,

thanks for the compliment.

i should've added i also had the distinction of being whacked in the head by mr peanut during that series.

i was looking one way and he thru a bag of peanuts from the opposite way and beaned me.

i'd read a piece about him.

https://montrealgazette.com/sports/remember-the-peanut-man

non mays but my first wife and i went to two expos/cubs games (my idea) during our honeymoon in 1971.

heard a familiar voices as we were leaving our hotel. looked and saw gowdy and kubek seated chatting away in the lobby.

one of the games was televised on national tv. monday night back then? forgotten.

got back home a few days later and a friend told us the cameras had shown us in the stands during the game.

i'm pretty sure it wasn't my performance at the game that gave us that shot, eh!

Alan D. Levine

6/23/2024 03:17:31 pm

Ed--You wouldn't have found any traces of No. 42 at Parc Jarry. He played at a stadium that was long demolished by 1969. George would know its name. This thread has gotten me to look for my scorecard for the Expos game I went to in 1969, when Coco LaBoy was the toast of Montreal. But I don't seem to have it anymore.

Bruce

6/23/2024 03:31:02 pm

ed....i mockingly called PUTIN, poutine....then realized that was his name en francais.....my late wife, mieko, would try any food humanity produced.

had some poutine (putin) in montreal. she said.....never again.

Albert De Leon

6/24/2024 01:21:00 pm

George- great piece on my boyhood hero. I never met Mays, tho I had his baseball card (which my mother threw out with my entire collection - a story for a therapist). In the early 70's, my brother and I were in the Johnson Publication Office (think Ebony & Jet magazines) when Mays appeared in an adjoining room. We were reduced to little kids at the mere site of the man. "There's Willie Mays" we said softly and excitedly, but were too shy to do anything else by the marvel at the site of our hero, Mr. Mays.

I enjoyed the Hano piece, too. Hope you're well and in good spirits.
Best, Al De Leon

George Vecsey

6/25/2024 10:36:40 am

Dear Al DeLeon : how nice to hear from you -- with great memories of meeting you with some of the CCNY baseball players from back in the day. Did you ever play street stickball? I never did, but I was terrible at stickball against the school brick wall....My Jamaica teammate Robert Mindelzun has included a 22-second clip of Willie showing his stuff on an uptown street....how lovely to see him having fun. He was usually on guard with my generation of sportswriters. Sorry we haven't connected since that CCNY luncheon on Arthur Avenue...be well. GV

Robert Mindelzun (via GV)

6/25/2024 10:24:49 am

(Robert Mindelzun was a soccer teammate at Jamaica High. I wrote about his family's perilous escape from Europe. Now a doctor in the Bay Area, he writes about discovering the strange American sport, and the great player.GV)
https://www.georgevecsey.com/home/our-teammate-had-been-around

Hello George,
Thank you for an outstanding and memorable article.

I came from France in 1952. Although I had always been a very involved sports fan, I had never heard of that national American sport that is baseball. I did not speak English but I decided that I would learn the basics of the game. I remember sitting in the cafeteria at Evander Childs High School and having a one hour lecture with diagrams by a fellow student on the fundamentals of the game. Despite his best efforts, I absolutely had no idea what he was talking about.

In 1951 Willie Mays had been named Rookie of the Year. His power, his grace as well as his ebullient personality instantly attracted my attention. This was of course accentuated when I saw him playing stickball in the streets of Harlem in front of a multiethnic group of adults and children. He was thus going to be my first and greatest baseball hero for the rest of his life. Although I lost some interest in the New York Giants when they left for San Francisco I followed his career throughout his life.
Parenthetically he ended up living a mile or so from my house in Palo Alto in the adjacent town of Menlo Park.
I am attaching a short film
( https://www.reddit.com/r/baseball/comments/1clt7sz/rare_footage_of_willie_mays_playing_stickball_in/?rdt=60816
and a wonderful photograph, both of which rekindled the memories of my early days in this "land of my dreams".

Ed Martin

6/25/2024 07:33:58 pm

Apropros of Canada, (stretching a bit) and with nation mourning the Stanley Cup, although CBC reporting local celebrations on Canadian players on Panthers, I am reminded of my first contact, circa 1948.

A kid in NY could listen to sports on the radio every night, during the seasons, college basketball, Knicks, boxing from St. Nicholas Arena on Mondays, and MSG weekends, and HOCKEY.

Maurice “The Rocket” Richard’s, Bobby Hull, Toe Blake, Gordie Howe. Not remembering any Rangers, tells the story.

Wait til next year, Canada.

Ken Trell

6/25/2024 09:55:01 pm

Hi George, it’s Ken Trell from Jamaica high school!
Wow, I so much enjoyed reading all these reactions to the passing of Willie Mays.
Having been born in the Bronx and then moving to the country(Laurelton Queens). My whole family were Yankee fans, and remained in the Bronx.
Last week when I heard of the passing of Willie Mays on the evening news, I was so sad that I called my best and dearest friend Mike, to let him know. He hadn’t heard about Willie’s passing yet and also felt terrible.
All my high school friends from Laurelton used to spend hours on end in PS176 schoolyard, playing basketball,football,and softball. I remember well the arguments about who was the best centerfielder, Mays, Mantle or Snyder. Even today, my wife and I are diehard Yankee fans!!
I also was happy to see comments from Walter Schwartz and remember. your class reunion luncheons on Union Turnpike.
His passing is like losing part of your past and wonderful growing up years!! Sports was not complicated like it is today.
Every generation thinks that theirs is the best, but Ours truly
was.
This is a wonderful way to get in touch and hope all is well with you and your family.
Ken

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Willie Mays, Hero to Other Players

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