1964 All Star Game
I saw a post on The McCovey Chronicles about Grant's favorite all-star memories. Now, great all-star memories is in my book an oxymoron (“Hey, I ain’t no ox moron.” – Pvt. Jamaal Montgomery played by Kadeem Hardison in “Renaissance Man”).
The game is best remembered for Johnny Callison’s walk off homer with two outs in the ninth. But not by me. That is the day I discovered Willie Mays.
I grew up in New York in the fifties. I’m told that although my entire family was from Brooklyn and so were Dodger fans, I was turned into a NY Giants fan as a little kid by the one family friend, Bob Mantler, who was a real baseball fan. My mother says I stood in my playpen watching the Giants on the tube cheering for Willie. I’m sure it’s true, and I’m sure Mantler made me root for the Giants, but I don’t remember it.
I became a baseball fan in 1960 at the age of eight when I started playing the game. In 1960 in New York, there was only one team in town, the Yankees (many would say that is still true). And what a team to root for! Mickey and Roger and Yogi and Whitey and Moose and Elston and Casey! Five straight AL pennants starting in 1960. Bill Mazeroski can just go to hell.
So all of my friends were Yankee fans. Willie Mays was just some guy playing baseball a million miles away. Until July 7, 1964.
The AL was winning 4-3 going into the bottom of the ninth as Mays led off. He worked a walk off Dick Radatz after getting a generous call on a 2-2 slider. Willie stole second. Orlando Cepeda blooped a single to right, and Mays’ baseball instincts and speed allowed him to score when most players would have stopped at third. The game was tied, setting up Callison’s heroics. But then and there I realized I had witnessed an amazing player with an intuitive feel for the game single-handedly manufacture the tying run.
You can never get tired of watching one of the greatest play every day. People who grew up here watching Willie should not take that for granted. That's why we're all so dedicated to Barry, because we know how good he's been. And we here in San Francisco are getting to watch another special player now too - Omar Vizquel is without doubt among the finest fielders at shortstop the game has ever seen. Pay attention, because you won't ever see his like again.
Just like Willie.
posted by PEFACommish at 12:57 PM
4 Comments:
I have to wholeheartedly agree on Willie. I did get the chance to watch him day in and day out since the Giants moved to SF in 1958. You only had to watch him for a short time to realize the enormity of his greatness. It permeated his play in so many facets of the game. Taking the extra base on a quasi-gapper after lulling the outfielder to sleep with a three-quarters gait and then exploding into a sprint.....taking advantage of a slow delivering pitcher with a walking lead into a steal. . .. .going from 1st to 3rd on a short hit to left field.....making impossible defensive plays look routine. . .. .the incredible knack for coming up with the clutch hit when it was needed most, etc. etc. etc.
As good as Barry has been over his career, he still doesn't compare with Willie, who in my estimation, is the greatest player who has ever played the game. Those who didn't watch him every day will trot out statistic after statistic touting other players, but statistics don't tell the whole story here. God only knows how many home runs he lost at Candlestick, especially when the park was completly open in the outfield and the winds howled towards home plate. The stadium was not enclosed until the early '70s and even then it was no picnic for right handed hitters.
Defensively, he had no equal. I was at a game in the 70s at Candlestick when Willie Mays came out of nowhere and elevated over Bobby Bonds at the right centerfield fence to bring back a potential home run off the bat of Bobby Tolan. That replay has been shown many times over the years ending with Mays tumbling over senior Bonds and holding on for the catch. What was remarkable about that was that in Tolan's next at bat he ripped a drive to almost the exact same spot in right centerfield and Mays made the same type of catch, robbing him of another home run, only this time with Bonds staying out of the way knowing that Mays would make the catch.
So many memories and I think it will be a long time that we will ever see as complete of a dominating player as the Say Hey Kid.
Agreed--don't compare the two. Willie was spirit and effort, to go with considerable talent. Bonds is just talent, and a slacker--even before he started preserving his energy and body for the long-run. I never bought into that crap about not running out balls, etc. He'll never be a Willie.
I went back to see exactly when Mays made this catch that I described. It happened on April 11, 1970. At the time, Mays was one month short of his 40th birthday.
Can you imagine Barry making this type of catch on his 40 year old legs more or less 2 in ome game? I don't think so.
Well he might be a Willie McCovey, who pled guilty to tax evasion.
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