Willie Mays at 90

[G-Fafif]

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.htmlhttps://www.nytimes.com/2021/05/05/sports/baseball/willie-mays-90.html

[G-Fafif]

[G-Fafif]

A Polar Bear greeting within.

[Johnny Lunchbucket]

I liked that happy birthday vid

[kcmets]

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

[Willets Point]

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]

Albert and Willie; Willie and Ralph; and http://www.faithandfearinflushing.com/2021/05/07/eventful-confluences-now-and-then/so forth.

[Frayed Knot]

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]

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]

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]

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]

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]

Back to Willie Mays:



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

[Edgy MD]

And will that car be coming by Citi?

[batmagadanleadoff]

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]

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]

=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.

[G-Fafif]

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]

Ted Williams in 2006.



JFK in 2007.

[Benjamin Grimm]

=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).

[Willets Point]

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]

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_12amghttps://youtu.be/N8rN3_12amg

[Lefty Specialist]

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

[Marshmallowmilkshake]

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.

Edited May 10, 2021 by Guest

[The Hot Corner]

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

[G-Fafif]

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-2021https://www.si.com/mlb/2021/07/09/willie-mays-where-are-they-now-2021

[MFS62]

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



Later

[dinosaur jesus]

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]

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

[Johnny Lunchbucket]

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.