RIP Willie.
I snapped this pic in 1976 at the MLB All-Star Game in Philadelphia. He was just coming out of the dugout.
I had a Field Pass for the game. I assume Willie was an honorary coach or perhaps was recognized prior to the game.
Edit: Usually, there are grammatical. Not this time. Since it was in 1976, the credentials were probably with the help of SID Dave Young, and not The Miami Student.
Willie signed this for me in the Giants’ Spring Training dugout in Scottsdale in the mid-80s. I was helping out with the Mariners’ gear for road games the week before we broke camp and headed north so that our equipment manager could hang back at our clubhouse and pack up. Willie was a special assistant to the Giants’ GM at that stage. He still suited up and roamed around the field in BP.
RIP. His numbers from 1954 to 1965 are absolutely stupid. Could’ve hit 700 if he didn’t miss most of two seasons for military service.
So a friend of mine asked me who the best living players from that era are. Koufax No. 1 I guess…Yaz second? You could make a case for Billy Williams, or Bench or Rose.
Also, based on the title, I’m glad this isn’t a thread about someone’s ED.
RIP. I started following MLB in 1972 so only saw the end of his career. Great player and by all accounts a great man.
When I think about Willie, it was his love of the game that every fan could see when you watched him play. He was exciting and a showman. He swung hard and ran hard. I would say the greatest CF ever. Such a great defender and baserunner and one of the best hitters ever. As a young player the stories are legendary that he would stop on his way home after a game and play stickball with the kids in the streets of New York. His trademarks included the basket catch, his hat flying off when he ran, and his. Nickname, “ The Say Hey Kid”.
Your list of possibilities for best living player now is a good one. I think it’s most accurate when it’s broken down by position. Bench and Reggie Jackson would be near the top of my list as far as the most impact they had. Yes to Billy W and Yaz, too.
Rose is an anomaly- might be the best player and worst person on the list. Everyone I knew in the game who knew him was at best ambivalent about him as a person. Most felt he was a complete jerk. I’ve never met a fan who claims to have professed to having a positive interaction with him. Everyone does agree he was a great player.
Others - mostly hitters - could be Mattingly, Boggs and Carew. Players I was close to back in the day said Rodney had the quickest wrists ever and Mattingly had the best eye.
As you suggested, Koufax is high on the list as best living pitcher. Randy Johnson could be high on the pitcher list, as well.
Having been a fan of the Big Red Machine in high school and college, I’m partial to Johnny Bench.
Interesting topic now that Willie is gone.
Not a Yankee fanboy by any stretch, but I’d have to say the best living pitcher is Mariano Rivera.
There are tons of fans that have engaged with him at signings and other events when he is “on” that come away with positive interactions. Now when he’s outside of that and being himself is possibly another story.
Native New Yorker, Willie Mays fan from birth given that my father grew up near the Polo Grounds and was a Giants fan. In New York the debate was about whether Willie or Mantle was better. It was clearly 24.
I was at his first game as a Met but my better story took place on May 8, 1970 on the night the Knicks won their first NBA title.
My family was at Shea because the Giants were in town, armed with a transistor radio……as were most fans. Willie hit a home run early in the game. There was a rain delay. During the delay Willie came on the field waving a white towel leading the Flushing Faithful in pulling for the Knicks.
After the rain let up, after the Knicks clinched, Willie hit another HR and the Giants won 7-1.
It was a fantastic night.
I met him once and he was mildly friendly. I didn’t care. When he shook my hand I was struck by how large his hands were, almost as big as a baseball glove.
As to the list above, how is Ken Griffey Jr. not in the running. He should be. He wore the number and played with unbridled joy and passion. Had he not played on artificial turf he would be considered the best after Willie Mays.
No comment on Pete Rose.
Gayle Sayers is also rumored to be a humongous asshole as well.
If you’re willing to overlook the steroids (I’m not), Bonds is the obvious choice for best living player. Trout and Ohtani are in the conversation, assuming you don’t punish them for having scrub teammates. As mentioned, Randy Johnson and Ken Griffey are right there. You could probably make a compelling case for Pujols.
I typically take these types of rumors with a grain of salt, especially coming from fans, because you never really know how that person approached them. Some athletes/celebrities spend countless hours interacting with fans but when that one person who is clueless about boundaries approches them during their dinner or in the airport after an exhausting day and they just don’t want to be bothered now they are suddenly an asshole.
Or it simply depends on which side of the bed they got up on. My brother-in-law knows several people with the Reds who regularly have player access, and I spoke with one of the long timers about Bench (my vote for greatest living player, but I’m biased). He said some days you get “good Johnny” and others you get “bad Johnny”. You don’t ever want to approach “bad Johnny”.
Oh, and to stay on topic, Mays has to be listed among the top 3 position players ever, yeah?
I think top three for sure. Last nights game was an amazing tribute to not only him but the Negro Leagues as a whole.
I’d bet that this is another instance of private persons being bugged in public to share their time and space. You can be nice to a hundred people and they just walk away smiling, but give a “go away” to just one and that person will depart to tell the whole world what a contemptible ass you are. Being a celebrity has it’s perks, but it’s also a life-sentence of being hit up for favors. I’m going to give sports icons a pass on believing what social media commenters have to say about their worth as a nice vs lousy human being.
In fairness, I was talking about that 50s-60s-70s era, not necessarily the best living player. But yeah, Griffey would have to be near the top of a still-living list.
I’m not a huge fan but he had an unbelievable first 10 years.
Funny how mixed opinions can be. I remember bringing a copy of Vineline (Cubs publication) to Spring Training to get Jeff Samardzija to sign the issue he was on the cover of. He blew off one guy, who said “he’s a bit of an asshole”. Later on I got a chance to get my magazine signed and not only did he sign it, he made sure to sign on the white of his arm on the photo with the dark ink so it showed up better, rather than the dark part of the photo.
I saw the same guy later and showed him, and he said “yeah, he’s probably just tired of me” and showed me a stack of Samardzija baseball cards, and he was trying to get him to sign all of them over the course of the month. No wonder Jeff blew him off.
I talked to Trent Rosecrans talked about player perceptions by fans and media some years ago. He couldn’t stand Brandon Phillips personally but the people I know that dealt with him thought he was great.
The rise of professional autograph hounds who sell what they get signed online or to sports shops turned a lot of players off. At spring training some of them would even plant volunteer batboys and urge them to get autographs from players in the dugout during a game. Unfortunately that was an immediate firing offense for the kid serving as a volunteer batboy that day. I fired two in Tucson who were being paid by the autograph hound to bother players during a single game.
Plus lots of people seem to chose the wrong time to engage or are what players refer to as annoying Green Flies who never shut up.
Being in a big league club house for 16 seasons and being on the road with the club and in hotels with them on several occasions, I got to see a lot. Most guys were ultra nice class acts all the time. Some were just professionally aloof - like Reggie, Rod Carew and even Junior sometimes.Some were masters of the big league blow off who came off as rude and a very few were just complete A-Holes.
Guys developed reputations over the course of their careers. Most of the reputations were well-earned, one way or the other.
I get emailed a weekly column by Reds author Chad Dotson (The Big 50). Here was this week’s entry:
Willie Mays passed away this week. RIP Legend.
When we were writing [The Big 50] one of my favorite chapters to research was about Eric Davis in 1987. Everyone in the baseball world was mesmerized by young Davis, and the quotes were completely over-the-top. It was awesome. Some examples:
“Eric Davis flat-out frightens me more than any player I’ve ever seen.”
–Tommy Lasorda, Dodgers manager
“There’s got to be a stick of dynamite in that body…. He’s got more talent in that body than any one player I’ve ever seen.”
–Reds pitcher Ron Robinson
“Nobody in this league has any more talent than Eric Davis,” said Giants manager Roger Craig. “He can hit the ball five hundred feet and run like a deer. He’s just like Hank Aaron when he came up.”
As we noted in the book, by far the most prevalent comparison for Davis was Willie Mays:
“Eric has more talent than any player I have ever seen in my life, including Willie Mays,” said Davis’ manager, Pete Rose. “I think everything said about him is justified.”
The previous August, the Reds were playing a series against the Giants in San Francisco’s old Candlestick Park. Mays just happened to be at the game, and Rose approached him. “I got a kid who can do all the things you could, Willie,” said Rose.
Mays squinted at Pete. “Where is he?”
When Davis, 6-foot-3 and rail-thin, walked over to be introduced, Mays was not particularly impressed. “I saw no similarities,” he said later. “Let the kid play. In the end, they’ll compare numbers on paper.”
For his part, Davis responded to the plaudits with his customary modesty. “Not even close,” says Davis. “I’ve got a long way to go. I’m being compared to the impossible…. Why not compare me to my peers?”
By May of 1987, Davis was leading the league in every major hitting category. He was hitting .411 with an on-base percentage of .475 and an almost-inconceivable slugging percentage of .900. He had 12 home runs, 27 RBI, 27 runs scored. And then the legend grew:
Just when it appeared things couldn’t get any better, Davis showed that he was more than just a power hitter. In Cincinnati’s next game, against the Mets in New York, Davis stole three bases and scored another run, but the big highlight came in the sixth inning. With the Reds clinging to a slim 1-0 lead, Davis’ childhood friend Darryl Strawberry launched a blast to deep left-center field. Davis sprinted back to the fence, near the 410-foot mark, leaped high into the air and reached over the wall. When he landed, the ball was in his glove for the third out of the inning.
“I didn’t think Superman could get to that ball,” said Rose. “I guess I forgot who was going after it.”
The following day, Willie Mays had reconsidered his position. “It’s an honor to be compared to Eric Davis,” Mays said. “I hope Eric is honored.”
Of course, we know Davis didn’t turn out to be Willie Mays. He’s the most talented player I’ve ever seen (well, until Elly De La Cruz showed up), but injuries limited his success. You know the story. He was really good. But he wasn’t Mays.
He was never going to be Mays, because no one was Mays. There’s a great argument that the Say Hey Kid was the best player ever to grace a baseball field. If there’s ever been a player I wish I could have seen play in person, it would be Johnny Bench. But that’s only because I’m a Reds homer. The real answer is Willie Mays. Can you imagine being able to watch him play?
When I read Joe Posnanski’s piece about Mays this week [in his indispensable newsletter], it reminded me of the Eric Davis chapter because of the over-the-top way people described Mays.
Listen to the awe of people who saw him play, even for a minute, people like Buck O’Neil, who said, “There were faster men, but not with a baseball in the air,” or listen to Durocher, who said Mays was the violin virtuoso Jascha Heifetz, the racehorse Nashua and Sammy Davis Jr. all rolled into one, or listen to the theater legend Ethel Barrymore, who said, “Isn’t Willie Mays wonderful?”
But while Davis was honored by comparisons to Mays, you’ll notice that none of his contemporaries compared Willie Mays to any other player. Because there was never a player like him that ever lived.
