Wednesday, June 19, 2024

Maybe the best things ever said about Willie Mays.

 


On his first major-league hit, a titanic home run off Warren Spahn, over the left field roof of the Polo Grounds:

"The crowd...roared and cheered as though Willie had just won the World Series. It was a weird, tingly thing to be part of, because all the crowd was saying really was, 'Welcome, Willie. We've been waiting for you all our lives.'"

    —Robert Creamer

"I never saw a fucking ball leaving a fucking park so fucking fast in my fucking life."

    —Leo Durocher

On what he represented:

"[Mays] was a new kind of athlete being showcased, a player who, in contrast to most white superstars of the past, was both powerful and fast."

    —David Halberstam

On his hitting ability:

"If there was a machine invented to measure each swing of a bat, it would be proven that Mays swings with more power and bat speed, pitch for pitch, than any other player."

    —Branch Rickey

On his fielding ability:

"Willie can go get it, and Willie can bring it back."

    —Piper Davis!

"Goddammit, can't someone tell that guy this isn't the Little League?"

    —Richie Ashburn (on how far in Mays played)

"The only player I ever saw who could run hard one way and throw hard the other."

    —Umpire Jocko Conlan

"Just safe!"

    —Umpire Art Gore, after a 320-foot throw by Mays almost caught Billy Bruton, the fastest player in the NL, at the plate.


"Oh, my God, that's not human!"

    —Teammate Whitey Lockman reacting to a catch Mays made off Roberto Clemente

"The greatest catch I ever saw in my life."

    —Pee Wee Reese in 1952, after watching Mays rob Dodger Bobby Morgan with a spectacular, backhanded running catch near the 351 sign in Ebbets Field, after which Mays bounced off the ground and tumbled into the base of the wall, leaving himself cut on his elbow, thigh, and knee. (Vin Scully, in the broadcast booth, wondered in Mays were still alive.)

"He turned and ran to a place where no one can go to get the ball, starting where he started when the ball was hit. So it was more than just a great acrobatic play. It was a play that until that play was outside the realm of possibility."

    —Bob Costas, on the 1954 World Series catch

On his running ability:

"Zimmerman exploded on contact. The ball, the glove, the mask, and several pieces of Zimmerman appeared to disassemble in midair, like the cat in a Looney Tunes cartoon."

    —Charles Einstein, after watching a home plate collision between Mays and catcher Jerry Zimmerman.

"I was kind of using his head as a fulcrum or something, and actually kind of ran up one side of him and down the other, and his hand with the ball kept aiming for him but never did touch me."

    —Mays on evading Roy Campanella's tag at home plate.

"You're telling me he did the impossible!

"He did!

"Well, I ain't fixin' to believe it!"

    —Leo Durocher arguing that call with the home plate umpire.

On his personality:

"It just seemed like he could do nothing unostentatiously."

    —Arthur Daley

"Willie's exuberance was his immortality."

    —Roger Kahn

"The secret to Willie Mays is he frivolity in his bloodstream."

    —Branch Rickey


On his genius:

"It was a wonderful game, but for me the big show was Willie Mays."

    —Gen. Douglas MacArthur

"There have been two geniuses: Willie Mays and Willie Shakespeare."

    —Tallulah Bankhead

"...why is life worth living?...Well, there are certain things, I guess, that make it worthwhile...for me, I would say, Groucho Marx...and Willie Mays, and the second movement of the Jupiter Symphony, and Louie Armstrong's recording of 'Potatohead Blues,' and Swedish movies...Sentimental Education, by Flaubert, Marlon Brando, Frank Sinatra, those incredible apples and pears by Cezanne, the crabs at Sam Woe's..."

    —Woody Allen, in Manhattan

"I saw him his rookie year, one of his first games, and he hit a line drive down the right field line, a triple, and boy, watching him fly around the bases, it was electrifying."

    —Jim Bouton

"When you see someone doing something you admire, the image of that makes a mockery of all forms of bigotry."

    —President Bill Clinton

"Isn't Willie Mays wonderful?"

    —Ethel Barrymore


On what we lost:

"You're Willie Mays of Fairfield, Ala., who is part of the small talk of New York. This shall be your city as long as your talent lasts...Kids forget the squalor of your childhood as they emulate the shambling urgency of your gait. [At the Polo Grounds] Strangers, aching with loneliness, spoke to those who sat along side of them. And they mentioned your name...you brought people together in the bantering argument of sports. You made time pass for the bored with a bright rush. It is a fine accomplishment in a terrible age."

    —Jimmy Cannon








74 comments:

  1. Thanks Hoss. Very beautiful. I'm going to save this one.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Man, thanks for sharing that.

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

    Say Hey Say Willie

    ReplyDelete
  4. Hoss,

    Your historical insights are always good, but especially appreciated on a day like today.

    ReplyDelete
  5. ...and I really liked Durocher's soft spoken comment.

    ReplyDelete
  6. Leo had a fucking way with fucking words.

    ReplyDelete
  7. Cole and Maraschino, though....

    ReplyDelete
  8. Remember Leo was in that episode of Mr Ed!

    Ruphis- I was wrong about…..the retaliation

    ReplyDelete
  9. JM,

    An interwebs classic:

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cxpV8D8K9JI

    ReplyDelete
  10. Did Mr. Ed ever drop an f-bomb, or just meadow muffins?

    ReplyDelete
  11. AA, and a shame that you were wrong.

    ReplyDelete
  12. Jones? Wtf? Fucking Boone.

    ReplyDelete
  13. Fucking Boone giving up again with fucking Gonzales.

    ReplyDelete
  14. How does fucking Boone keep his fucking job?

    ReplyDelete
  15. Not all Bonhead's fault. Ca$hole has provided such depth on the team mendoza bench.

    ReplyDelete
  16. Overmanaging here at its best. Kahnle has not been the Kahnle we used to know.

    ReplyDelete
  17. So if Judge couldn't pinch hits, how bad is his hand, really?

    ReplyDelete
  18. Ouch. Soto sucked on that one. Wow.

    ReplyDelete
  19. JM, they'll deny for two weeks while he makes the injury worse, the 15 day dl, later moved to 60 day when it's revealed that surgery is necessary.

    ReplyDelete
  20. Judge is going to need about a week, people. Get use to the that. He sadly just doesn’t possess “HAMMER HANDS”

    ReplyDelete
  21. At least Glassman won't be able to hit into an inning ending DP.

    He'll go for the triple play

    ReplyDelete
  22. Wait. Stanton hit a clutch HR? How did THAT happen?

    ReplyDelete
  23. Stanton's bat didn't look very slow there...

    ReplyDelete
  24. That's one way to not get thrown out at 2nd

    ReplyDelete
  25. The guy is really pretty good with RISP. Really.

    ReplyDelete
  26. Glebes made a nice catch, but poor communication from Vitiligo.

    ReplyDelete
  27. I think those are tattoos, not vitiligo...

    ReplyDelete
  28. Coney just gave a shout out to the Master 😊

    ReplyDelete
  29. Rufus, I believe that you are correct. Meanwhile this lineup is too fucking thin! Rice looks good, so far! But man, without Judge or Soto... And that bullpen is forgettable...

    ReplyDelete
  30. One positive thing (and I hate saying this) the Orioles have had their starters wiped out with injuries.

    ReplyDelete
  31. Just realized this pitcher is the guy that got hit in the face last year

    ReplyDelete
  32. I'm starting to like Vertigo/Vitiligo/Vigilante.

    Hated him on the carmines

    ReplyDelete
  33. I fucking hate that fuck fuck-face kimbral

    ReplyDelete
  34. The world must be off its axis.

    Who is this guy wearing Glassman's uniform?

    ReplyDelete
  35. Kimberly looks like he's preparing for a prostate exam before every pitch.

    ReplyDelete
  36. Holmes definitely letting in at least the ghost runner if not more.

    ReplyDelete
  37. Sad that Johnny Wad is the best option in the bullpen right now. 😞

    ReplyDelete
  38. Surprised he recorded an out before he did it.

    ReplyDelete
  39. The wheels on the bus fall off and off.

    ReplyDelete
  40. Who’s the lamest
    Pitcher
    On this
    Yankees team
    HOL
    MES
    HEa
    REALLY
    SUCKSSSSSSSSSSSSSS!

    (Mickey mouse theme)

    ReplyDelete
  41. Well, at least Boone can brag about how the team never gives up. Well, except for runs in extra innings, that is.

    ReplyDelete
  42. "The Homes", I don't know about him... And The Boone made too many "questionable" substitutions.....

    ReplyDelete
  43. Kay's talking about the bottom of the inning -- two runs in and a runner on 2nd with 1 out

    ReplyDelete
  44. Is anyone warming up? Anyone? Bueller?

    ReplyDelete
  45. Of course Holmes will spoil the most important RBI from Stanton this season.

    ReplyDelete
  46. Why??? WHHYYYYY!!! WHY ARE YOU RUNNING YOU BASTARD!!!@

    ReplyDelete
  47. Hard to believe that Soto has never had a walk-off homer...

    ReplyDelete

Members of the blog can comment. To receive an e-mailed invitation, write to johnandsuzyn@gmail.com. And check spam if it doesn't show up. (Google account required.)

Note: Only a member of this blog may post a comment.