This Too Shall Pass

Dad and me, Christmas 2010

On November 28, 1980, the folksinging group The Weavers -- Pete Seeger, Lee Hays, Fred Hellerman, and their female member, Ronnie Gilbert -- had their last full concert, at Carnegie Hall in New York. Hays, who had written "If I Had a Hammer" with Seeger, was in a wheelchair, suffering from diabetes and heart disease. He spoke of the election of Ronald Reagan, 24 days earlier, something no good leftist would let go without saying something. And he told the audience, "I've had kidney stones. This, too, shall pass!" The audience roared with laughter.

Hays died 9 months later. Seeger lived until 2014, Gilbert left us the following year, and Hellerman the year after that, none of them living to see Donald Trump take the office.

My father didn't get to see Trump take the office, either. At least once a day, he would have watched Trump on the TV news, and let loose with his favorite insult: "You ninny!" Every once in a while, his inner Newark would reach the surface, and he'd blurt out, "You ass!"

My father died on June 29, 2014, 10 years ago today. He was 71. He was not one of these old guys who always talked about how the past, especially his own youth, was better. Indeed, his favorite things about his youth were the science fiction books, TV shows and movies that predicted a better future. And his favorite President, a man he shook hands with during a Newark campaign motorcade in 1960, was John F. Kennedy, the most forward-looking President of them all.

Dad always looked forward. Even in his not-that-old age, he still seemed young. He believed there was always something new to do, and that there was always something interesting to find out.

And that's a good lesson from any one person to another, especially from a father to a son.

My father used to say, "This too shall pass" all the time. And I would think, but never say out loud in front of him, "Fat lot of good that does me now." That line is one thing about him I don't miss.

It could be argued that, Yes, it does pass, so when the next thing comes along, you're stronger and can face it better. The line of Friedrich Nietzsche: "That which does not kill us makes us stronger." I used to think, No, that which does not kill me only ticks me off.

But there's some wisdom in that, too. Having gotten into my mid-50s, and survived a lot of crap, including my now-replaced bad hips, I really do feel like a survivor now. I wish Dad could have seen how the pain is gone (not quite completely, but most of it), and that I could tell him that I now see what he was trying to say to me.

So when I got shoulder tendinitis in January and sprained my ankle in April, I did what had to be done about it, and now, I'm telling those injuries, "Is that all you got?" There's a lot of things I couldn't handle when I was younger that I can handle now.

The Yankees' current slump, which has included losses to the Red Sox or the Mets, still makes me angry. But not like it would have, a few years ago. From experiencing fandom, and reading about it, including Nick Hornby's memoir Fever Pitch, I understand now: There's always another game, and another season.

One day, there will be games that I do not live to see. I have taken notice of the fact that the Yankees played the Red Sox in their 1st game after I was born, and in their last game before my father died -- and lost both of them.

(It gets no freakier than that: In their 1st game after he was born, they beat the Washington Senators. In their 1st game after my mother was born, they lost to the Philadelphia Athletics. That was also the day of Jackie Robinson's debut for the Brooklyn Dodgers, which became Mom's team, because they were her mother's team. But her father was from The Bronx, and a Yankee Fan, and he got to me before any of them did.)

Dad would never have run for President. But I'll tell you this: With his interest in space, we would have been on Mars by now. Osama bin Laden would have been dead by Christmas 2001. Sam Alito, Neil Gorsuch, Brett Kavanaugh and Amy Comey Barrett would not have been put on the Supreme Court. And you can be sure that there never would have been a scandal in the Veterans Administration, and he would never have called our veterans "losers" and "suckers" like Trump did.

Dad was disappointed by Bill Clinton, but still liked him. He liked Hillary Clinton. He liked Barack Obama a lot. He didn't get to see Joe Biden as President, but he seems to have liked him. I know that, presuming he were alive today, and his own cognitive function were still in place, he would have appreciated how Biden has handled things.

He would have known that there will always be a new "ninny" out there. But there will also be people who will get us through the ninniness. And he would have been ready to be one of the people who helped us through the ninniness. That, too, shall pass.

Orlando Cepeda, 1937-2024

This has already been a difficult season for baseball in the San Francisco Bay Area. The Oakland Athletics have been terrible, and have announced their move to Las Vegas, with a stop at Sacramento in between. The San Francisco Giants have also struggled, and are below .500. And they just lost their greatest legend, Willie Mays.

Now, they have lost another: Orlando Cepeda.

Orlando Manuel Cepeda Pennes was born on September 17, 1937 in Ponce, Puerto Rico. His father, Pedro Cepeda, was a professional baseball player, known as "The Big Bull" and "Perucho." Orlando later became known as "The Baby Bull" and "Peruchin." Due to his love of Latin-flavored jazz and dancing, he also became known as "Cha Cha."

Baseball was, metaphorically speaking, in his blood, and he got off to a good start. But the seeds of his difficulties were also sown early, as he injured a knee playing basketball at age 13, and it never fully healed. Pedro was a heavy drinker, and caught malaria in 1955. This combination killed him, but not before his son was signed by the New York Giants. Orlando paid for the funeral with his signing bonus.

The Giants moved from New York to San Francisco in the 1957-58 off-season, which denied Orlando the chance to play in front of New York's huge Puerto Rican population. But it helped him in his new home: San Franciscans took to him, and to the other rising stars of the Giants, like Willie McCovey, Juan Marichal, and the 3 Alou brothers, who were Dominicans like Marichal. (Although founded by Spanish monks, San Francisco did not, then, have a large Hispanic community.)

This worked in the young players' favor, but worked against their established star, Willie Mays, who was seen as New York's star, an interloper. Frank Conniff of the New York Journal-American, perhaps the only man ever to interview both men, wrote, "This is the damnedest city. They cheer Khrushchev and boo Willie Mays."

Cepeda and the West Coast made their major league debuts together, on April 15, 1958, at Seals Stadium in San Francisco. The Giants played their also-transplanted arch-rivals, the Brooklyn, now Los Angeles, Dodgers. Batting 5th, playing 1st base, and wearing the Number 30 he would wear for most of his career, Cepeda went 1-for-5, the hit a solo home run off Don Bessent in the 5th inning, and the Giants cruised to an 8-0 win. Cepeda was named the National League's Rookie of the Year. In 1959, he was named to the 1st of 11 All-Star Games. 

In 1961, Cepeda batted .311, and led the NL with 46 home runs and 142 runs batted in, making him the 1st Hispanic player to lead either League in both categories. But the Cincinnati Reds won the Pennant, and so Cepeda finished 2nd to Frank Robinson in the voting for the NL's Most Valuable Player. In 1962, the Giants won their 1st Pennant in San Francisco, with Cepeda batting .306 with 35 homers and 114 RBIs. But they lost the World Series to the Yankees.

But he re-injured his knee playing in Puerto Rico's Winter league. After playing through the injury with strong seasons in 1963 and 1964, he only made 40 plate appearances in 1965, and that may have cost the Giants the Pennant, as they fell just 2 games short of the Los Angeles Dodgers. There was also the issue of the fact that both Cepeda and McCovey were natural 1st basemen. There was no designated hitter at the time, and both men hit too well to be kept out of the lineup.

And so, on May 8, 1966, not only did the St. Louis Cardinals lose to the Giants, 10-5, in their last game at Busch Stadium, formerly known as Sportsman's Park, which opened in 1909 as the last in a series of ballparks on the site starting in 1866, but they traded pitcher Ray Sadecki, even-up, to the Giants for Orlando Cepeda.

Interviewed 20 years later by former Cardinal teammate Tim McCarver, Cepeda said he knew that the trade was contingent upon him passing a physical exam. So when the Cardinal team doctor asked him to show the knee, Cepeda showed the other knee. It was fine, the doctor approved the trade, and Warren Giles, President of the National League, approved the trade. Cepeda rebounded, and was named NL Comeback Player of the Year.

In 1967, Cepeda put the Cardinals on his back, and carried them to the Pennant. Ace pitcher Bob Gibson missed a few weeks when Roberto Clemente of the Pittsburgh Pirates hit a line drive off his shin. Lou Brock had another strong season, but Cepeda batted. .325 with 25 homers and a League-leading 111 RBIs. It was a well-balanced team. Cepeda was a unanimous choice for NL MVP. Oddly, McCarver came in 2nd in the voting, while teammates Brock came in 7th, Julián Javier 9th, and Curt Flood 13th. 

Noting the team's Hispanic influence, fans called the team "El Birdos," and came to the new Busch Memorial Stadium wearing Mexican-style sombreros, unaware of the huge differences in Latin America or in the nature of the Spanish language: "The Cardinals" would be "Los Cardenales," "The Birds" would be "Los Aves," and a Puerto Rican would be more likely to wear what's known as a "Panama hat."

Still, as they had when winning the World Series in 1964, the Cardinals had a good combination of "white" and "black," and now had enough "brown" to be a nearly fully-integrated team. Managed by 1940s 2nd baseman Albert "Red" Schoendienst, and bolstered by a resurgent Gibson and the acquisition of Roger Maris from the Yankees, the Cards beat the Boston Red Sox in the World Series. Orlando Cepeda had his ring.

The 1968 season was the "Year of the Pitcher": Despite the Cardinals winning another Pennant, but losing the World Series to the Detroit Tigers, Cepeda had his worst statistical full season yet, with career lows in batting average, .248; home runs, 16; and RBIs, 73. He reported late to Spring Training in 1969, and the Cardinals traded him to the Atlanta Braves for Joe Torre.

Cepeda was concerned about Jim Crow laws, but found himself treated well in Atlanta. He bounced back, and, in that 1st season of Divisional Play, helped the Braves win the NL Western Division. (Why they weren't in the East until the 1994 season, I don't know.) He had an even better season, statistically, in 1970.

But early in the 1971 season, he re-injured his knee, and hardly played over the next year. In mid-1972, the Braves traded him to the Oakland Athletics. He played 3 games before the injury ended his season. The A's did not include him on their postseason roster, and released him. He was 35, and looked done.

Then came the designated hitter, only to the American League, in 1973. He signed with the Boston Red Sox, and became the 1st player to hit at least 20 home runs in a season with 4 different teams, including what would now be called a walkoff homer against the Yankees at Fenway Park on April 8.

But the knee remained a problem, and he was released in Spring Training 1974. The Kansas City Royals picked him up, but he only played in 33 games, and was released at the end of the regular season. He was finished, with a .297 lifetime batting average, 2,351 hits including 379 home runs, 1,365 RBIs, and a career OPS+ of 133. Impressive -- but worthy of the Baseball Hall of Fame?

Cepeda married 3 times, and had 3 sons and a daughter. His 2nd wedding came shortly after his retirement. Shortly after that, he was running a baseball clinic in the South American nation of Colombia, when he was asked to help them move some marijuana to Puerto Rico. Already a longtime smoker, he had no problem with this. But the shipment turned out to be a lot bigger than he expected, and someone tipped off the San Juan police, and he was arrested. It took until 1978 for the case to reach trial, and he was sentenced to 5 years in prison, though he only served 10 months.

Shortly after his release, he was hired as a scout by the Chicago White Sox. In 1987, he was brought back into the Giants' fold, first as a scout, and then as a goodwill ambassador to Latin American countries.

In 1999, with many believing the drug conviction had held him back, he was elected to the Baseball Hall of Fame, making him only the 2nd Puerto Rican, after Clemente, to be elected. The Giants subsequently retired his Number 30. In 2000, in reflection of Boog Powell's barbecue stand in Baltimore, Orlando's Caribbean BBQ opened at the Giants' new ballpark, now named Oracle Park. In 2008, the Giants dedicated a statue of him outside the park.

I don't know why his statue is wearing a road uniform.

The Cardinals have not retired his number, but they have elected him to their team Hall of Fame. He has also been elected to the Puerto Rico Sports Hall of Fame, the Bay Area Sports Hall of Fame, and the Missouri Sports Hall of Fame.

Orlando Cepeda died today, June 28, 2024, at the age of 86. His wife, Nydia, released a statement: "Our beloved Orlando passed away peacefully at home this evening, listening to his favorite music and surrounded by his loved ones. We take comfort that he is at peace."

* Bob Melvin, manager of the Giants, who grew up as a Giants fan in nearby Palo Alto, California: "Man, what another gut punch. Another just incredible personality and just beloved here. Statue out front. The numbers he put up, there are a lot of legends here and he's certainly right in the middle of that. To have it so close in proximity to Willie, it's kind of staggering."

* Dave Roberts, manager of the Dodgers, who were playing in San Francisco when the Giants announced Cepeda's death: "I don't think there's anyone in baseball that can say a bad word about Orlando. To lose two baseball greats, two great Giants... there was a somberness in the stadium tonight."

The Giants won this past Monday, in their 1st home game since Mays died; and again last night, after Cepeda died, both times on walkoff plays. Seems fitting. In the postgame spraying of water bottles, the letters "O.C." seemed to form, and had nothing to do with Orange County, home to the Los Angeles Angels.

With his death, there are now 4 surviving members of the 1962 National League Champion San Francisco Giants: Juan Marichal, Felipe Alou, Jim Duffalo and Manny Mota.

There are 8 surviving members of the 1967 World Champion St. Louis Cardinals: Steve Carlton, Julián Javier, Dal Maxvill, Ray Washburn, Bobby Tolan, Ed Spiezio, Dick Hughes and Larry Jaster.

There are 5 players left from the East-West All-Star Game played in Los Angeles, as a civil rights charity game in memory of Dr. Martin Luther King in Spring Training 1970: Pete Rose, Johnny Bench and Reggie Jackson from the West team; and Reggie Smith and Mike Andrews from the East team.

And there are 7 players left who were their teams' 1st-ever designated hitters in 1973: Ron Blomberg, Tony Oliva, Tommy McCraw, Rico Carty, Mike Andrews, Bill North and Terry Crowley.

It was in writing this post that I learned that, in Spanish-speaking places, the Hall of Fame is El Salón de la Fama. People who believe "Everything sounds better in Spanish" certainly have a case there.

Orlando Cepeda was great in any language.

June 26, 1944: The Tri-Cornered Baseball Game

June 26, 1944, 80 years ago: A "Tri-Cornered Baseball Game" is played at the Polo Grounds in Upper Manhattan. The War Loans Sports Committee came up with the idea as a method of selling war bonds. The idea was that New York City's 3 major league teams -- the National League's Manhattan-based New York Giants, the National League's Brooklyn Dodgers, and the American League's Bronx-based New York Yankees -- would play each other in a three-way exhibition game.

Each team was to bat and field for 2 innings in a row, before taking a 1-inning break. By the end, each team would have played 6 innings of an otherwise standard 9-inning game. The game would only go 9 innings, regardless of who scored how many runs.

The Giants used their usual home clubhouse and dugout, while the Yankees and Dodgers shared facilities. In spite of it being a hot and humid Monday night, the official paid attendance was 49,605, and 500 returned injured veterans were admitted for free, pushing the total over 50,000, which still meant about 6,000 empty seats.

Ticket sales raised $4.5 million. Mayor Fiorello La Guardia, a big Yankee Fan, pledged the City to buy $50 million worth of war bonds for the occasion. And, appropriately, Bond Clothing Stores contributed an additional $1 million. So the game was a roaring success before the umpire ever said, "Play ball!"

The teams came into the game with their rosters depleted: The Yankees were missing Joe DiMaggio, Bill Dickey, Tommy Henrich and Phil Rizzuto, among others, all in the service; the Giants were missing Johnny Mize; and the Dodgers were missing Pee Wee Reese. But there were some Hall-of-Famers playing, all near the end of the line: The Dodgers had Joe Medwick and Paul Waner, while the Giants had Mel Ott (also their manager) and Ernie Lombardi.

The teams came into the game with roughly equal records: The Dodgers were 33-30, the Giants 32-29, and the Yankees 31-29.

The game began at 8:45 PM. Why so late? Because, back then, that was the traditional time for raising the curtain on a Broadway show. (I grew up in the 1970s and '80s, and, for as long as I can remember, it's been 8:00.) The Dodgers scored a run on the Yankees in the 1st inning, and 2 on the Giants in the 2nd inning.

No additional runs were scored until the 8th, when the Dodgers got another off the Giants. That was the Dodgers' last inning. The Yankees scored a run off the Giants in the 9th. The final score: Dodgers 5, Yankees 1, Giants 0. Having the home-field advantage did the Giants no good. And the Dodgers weren't even on hand when the game ended: They left early, to catch a train for their next roadtrip, to Chicago.

Eddie Basinski of the Dodgers went 1-for-2 in the game. He was the last surviving man who played in it, living until 2022. 

June 25, 1999: San Antonio's 1st Title

June 25, 1999, 25 years ago: The San Antonio Spurs win their 1st league championship, after 3 years in the ABA and 23 years in the NBA. They defeat the New York Knicks, 78-77 at Madison Square Garden, to win Game 5 and the NBA Championship.

For the only major sports team in a city now with over 1.14 million people, this is a huge moment. It begins a stretch where, in 16 seasons, coach Gregg Popovich and forward Tim Duncan will lead them into 6 NBA Finals, winning 5 of them, the 1st 2 with center David Robinson.

For the Knicks, it is their 8th trip to the NBA Finals, and it remains their last. They managed to get there despite an injury to their star player, center Patrick Ewing. Forward Larry Johnson put the team on his back, and was 3 wins away from becoming a New York sports legend.

Coach Jeff Van Gundy -- short, bald, scrawny, looking nothing like a basketball player -- had built a team that played scrappy ball. Bill Gallo, sports cartoonist for the New York Daily News, drew him as a boxer, calling him "Rocky Van Gutsy."

But "Coach Pop" had as much guts, more brains, and more talent, and there was little the Knicks could do. In 1997, the Knicks had been bought by Cablevision, and James Dolan has run them ever since. And competitiveness has been a rarity.

Founded in 1967, in the American Basketball Association, as the Dallas Chaparrals, the team moved in 1973, becoming the San Antonio Spurs. They were 1 of the 4 ABA teams invited to join the NBA in 1976. By 1978, they had won a Division title, followed by trips to the Western Conference Finals in 1979, '82 and '83.

After a few down years, the arrival of coach Larry Brown in 1988 and Robinson in 1989 made them a Playoff team again. They got back to the Conference Finals in 1995, Popovich's 1st year as general manager. In 1996, after a bad start, he named himself head coach, and the arrival of Duncan the following season made them a title team in just 2 more seasons.

The Spurs would win the title again in 2003, Robinson's last year; 2005, 2007 and 2014, losing in the Finals in 2013, as Duncan straddled the NBA's Shaquille O'Neal era and the first half of the LeBron James era, as it was LeBron's Heat that beat the Spurs in the 2013 Finals, before the Spurs turned the tables in 2014.

By 2022, the population of San Antonio was believed to be 1.47 million people, and its metropolitan area 2.6 million. Yet the Spurs remain its only major league team: They lost the WNBA's Silver Stars after the 2017 season; the Missions are in baseball's Class AA Texas League; despite several minor professional football teams, including the Gunslingers of the 1980s USFL and the Brahmas of the current UFL, they've only hosted 3 NFL regular-season games, all as an emergency home for the 2005 New Orleans Saints after Hurricane Katrina; San Antonio F.C. are in the USL Championship, the 2nd tier of American soccer; and they have no pro hockey team at all.

For the Yankees, It Is Test of Character Time

When last I wrote to you about the Yankees, I said, "This could be the trouble part of the season. Or the snap-out-of-it part of the season." I also wrote, "It is time to get concerned."

That concern has only grown.

The week couldn't have started much better. There was a showdown at Yankee Stadium II with the Baltimore Orioles, the team that seems to have emerged from the pack as the main challenger in the American League Eastern Division. On Tuesday night, Nestor Cortés pitched 6 innings, allowing no runs, 5 hits, and no walks.

There were no home runs, and no Yankee got more than 1 hit. Juan Soto had an unusual night: 0-for-2, with 3 walks. However, Anthony Volpe singled a run home in the 2nd inning. In the 3rd, Giancarlo Stanton singled a run home, and Gleyber Torres got another home on a sacrifice fly. In the 5th, another RBI sac fly came from DJ LeMahieu.

Clay Holmes got shaky in the 9th, doing his best Aroldis Chapman impression, but finally shut the door, and the Yankees won, 4-2. The Yanks were now 2 1/2 games ahead of the O's.

On Wednesday night, Gerrit Cole came off the Injured List, and made his 1st start of the season. He could have used one more rehab start in the minor leagues: He went 4 innings, threw 62 pitches, 41 for strikes, allowing 2 runs on 3 hits and 1 walk. He struck out 5, but that's essentially meaningless.

The bullpen couldn't hold it: Ron Marinaccio allowed 2 runs in the 5th, and Victor González allowed 1 in the 5th and 1 in the 7th. The Yankees grounded into double plays in the 7th and the 8th. Stanton hit a 3-run homer in the 7th, and singled home a run in the 9th. Aaron Boone went for it in the 9th, replacing Stanton with a pinch-runner, Austin Wells, to put more speed on the bases. But Alex Verdugo popped up, and Torres struck out, and the game went to extra innings.

Holmes allowed 2 runs in the 10th. The Yankees fought back: With Torres as the ghost runner, LeMahieu singled, and Oswaldo Cabrera was sent in to pinch-run. Ben Rice got Torres home with a sacrifice fly. Then Cabrera got caught stealing 2nd, a play upheld upon review. Jose Trevino drew a walk, but Jahmai Jones struck out to end the game: Orioles 7, Yankees 6.

The Thursday afternoon game was a disaster. Rookie Luis Gil had been brilliant in his 1st 14 appearances of the season. This time, all his good luck got reversed at once. He allowed a run in the 1st inning, and then, in the 2nd, the roof caved in: He allowed a single and a homer, got a groundout, then gave up walk, single, single, double, walk, single, and hit a batter. By the time Boone rescued him and brought in Michael Tonkin, 6 runs had crossed the plate. It was 7-0 Baltimore.

Torres homered in the bottom of the 2nd, and Aaron Judge did so in the 3rd. But the O's kept going, and were up 11-3 going to the bottom of the 5th. The Yankees took back 2 runs in the bottom of the 5th, but 11-5 was as close as they would get. The final was 17-5, and while the Yanks were ahead of the O's by half a game overall, the O's now led the Yanks by a game -- Cliché Alert -- in the all-important loss column.

*

So the Atlanta Braves came in for an Interleague series. Carlos Rodón had nothing, and didn't get out of the 4th inning. Chris Sale, like Cole working his way back from injury, started for the Braves, and did very well. Here's all the Yankee baserunners for the game: Volpe with a walk to lead off the 1st, Jones with a triple in the 2nd (driven home by a LeMahieu groundout), Jones and LeMahieu walking to lead off the 5th but getting stranded, Stanton singling in the 7th but getting erased on a double play, and Volpe suffering the same fate in the 9th. Braves 8, Yankees 1.

Could the Yankees rebound on Saturday: Yes: Marcus Stroman pitched well into the 7th, Judge and Trent Grisham hit home runs, and the Yankees won on Saturday, 8-3.

Cortés pitched okay yesterday. But the Yankees just couldn't get anything going. Soto singled with 1 out in the 1st, but was stranded. Grisham singled with 1 out in the 3rd, but was erased on a double play. Rice singled with 2 out in the 5th, but was stranded.

There was some hope in the 6th. Grisham led off with a single, and Volpe doubled him home. Soto grounded to short, and Volpe was thrown out at 3rd in a fielder's choice. Judge singled, but Verdugo grounded into a double play. Rice singled with 2 out in the 7th, but was stranded. He would be the last baserunner: Braves 3, Yankees 1.

*

Here's how things stand. We've played 80 games, almost exactly halfway through the regular season. The Yankees lead the AL East with a 52-28 record. The Orioles are 49-28, a game and a half behind, but even in the loss column. Everybody else is well back: The Boston Red Sox, 9 games; the Tampa Bay Rays, 13 games; the Toronto Blue Jays, 15 1/2 games.

The Yankees' winning percentage is now .650, a pace to go 105-57. But it is no longer the best in the AL: The Cleveland Guardians are at .653. At .662, the Philadelphia Phillies have the best record in baseball.

The Yankees still have hitting issues. Look at these on-base percentages: Oswaldo Cabrera, .276; Trent Grisham, .278; DJ LeMahieu, .280; Anthony Rizzo, .289; the catchers, Jose Trevino and Austin Wells, a combined .289; Gleyber Torres, .296. An on-base percentage under .300 is unacceptable. Giancarlo Stanton, at .302, and Alex Verdugo, at .305, are barely above it.

And now, Stanton and Rizzo, 2 hitters we were counting on, are both on the Injured List. So is Clarke Schmidt. So is Cody Poteet, who had taken Schmidt's place in the rotation, which, I suppose, now belongs to Cole.

The annual injury crisis has hit, as has the annual concerning slump. It's test of character time, time to see if adding Juan Soto really has turned this team around, or if they're just another round of Brian Cashman's gutless wonders.

The Yankees have today off. Tomorrow night and Wednesday night, we go to aptly-named Flushing to take on The Other Team. Then it's 4 games over the border against those pesky Blue Jays. Then back home for 3 against Cincinnati, and 3 against Boston. Then another roadtrip: 3 in Tampa Bay, 3 in Baltimore. That will take us to the All-Star Break.

June 22, 1944: President Franklin D. Roosevelt Signs the G.I. Bill

June 22, 1944, 80 years ago: President Franklin D. Roosevelt takes his 2nd-most important action of the month. Sixteen days after giving the okay for the D-Day invasion, he signs the Servicemen's Readjustment Act of 1944, a.k.a. the G.I. Bill.

FDR was the Assistant Secretary of the Navy during World War I, and saw how returning servicemen found that their jobs and homes had been given to others, leading to a recession so bad that it has often been called a depression, though it didn't last nearly as long as the one that hit in 1929 and led to his 1st election as President. He also didn't want a repeat of the Bonus Army controversy of 1932. He wanted an easier readjustment for the veterans returning from World War II, and he wanted it in place before they came back.

Benefits included housing loans, low-cost mortgages, low-interest loans to start a business or a farm, one year of unemployment compensation, and free college.

And so, all over America, hundreds of thousands of people went from ghetto apartments (The word "ghetto" was originally applied to the Jewish neighborhood of medieval Rome, so it is not a purely African-American term) to houses in better parts of their cities, or to the suburbs, making the growth of places like Long Island, New Jersey and Southern California possible.

This had 2 downsides: The people who moved into those slums were not veterans, and were not upwardly mobile, and the neighborhoods got worse; and it made it harder for baseball fans to get to the inner-city ballparks, leading to teams moving (Boston, Philadelphia and St. Louis all went from 2 teams to 1 between March 1953 and October 1954, and New York lost the Giants and the Brooklyn Dodgers 3 years after that) and other teams building new stadiums on the edges of cities (New York's Shea Stadium being an example of this) or in the suburbs (like Metropolitan Stadium outside Minneapolis).

The college access for veterans cannot be underestimated. By 1956, 7.8 million veterans had used the G.I. Bill for educational purposes. As much as the housing boom helped by the G.I. Bill, it created the great postwar middle class.

The Bill applied to black veterans as well as white ones. FDR got that passed in spite of whatever opposition he may have received from Southern Congressmen. Many of those black veterans used the G.I. Bill to go to what are now called "historically black colleges and universities" (HBCUs). Many of them became pivotal figures in the Civil Rights Movement.

FDR gets criticized for not doing enough for civil rights. His greatest contribution to it may have been inadvertent: If not for the G.I. Bill creating black lawyers and other activists, the Civil Rights Acts of the 1960s might not have happened for another generation.

The G.I. Bill's college provisions were not limited to American colleges. My grandfather's brother, Aaron Goldberg, stayed in France after the war, and attended the University of Paris, a.k.a. the Sorbonne. While there, he got married. Uncle Aaron and Aunt Catherine came to America, and were married for 44 years.

Who Is Baseball's Greatest Living Player?

At a dinner to honor the 100th Anniversary of professional baseball in 1969, 2 all-time teams were named: The Greatest Players, and the Greatest Living Players. Babe Ruth was named the Greatest Player, and Joe DiMaggio was named the Greatest Living Player -- and, for the rest of his life, he insisted upon being introduced as "Baseball's Greatest Living Player."

When he died in 1999, the title of "Baseball's Greatest Living Player" was, for most fans, passed to Willie Mays. Willie died this week. So who holds the title now?

By looking at the list of the 100 Greatest Baseball Players compiled in 1999 by The Sporting News, we can say that, with the death of Willie Mays, ranked 2nd behind Babe Ruth, the greatest living player is the man then ranked 16th, Johnny Bench.

It was a bad ranking. They had him ahead of his fellow Oklahoman, Mickey Mantle (17th, and dead in 1995), and ahead of the actual greatest catcher who ever lived, Yogi Berra (40th, still alive then, died in 2015).

Next on that list among players still alive: At 25th, Pete Rose. No. Just no. And that's got nothing to do with the reason he was banned from baseball -- or with the other reason he has become a pariah.

Next, at 26th, is Sandy Koufax. I have a hard time accepting a pitcher as the greatest living player, especially one whose legend is essentially based on just 5 seasons, maybe 6.

Next, at 28th, is Mike Schmidt. Here we go. Almost certainly, the greatest player ever to play 3rd base. Definitely the greatest player in Phillies history, and, given how many of the old Philadelphia Athletics' legends split their careers with other teams, probably also the greatest player in Philadelphia baseball history. 548 home runs. 10 Gold Gloves. 3 Most Valuable Player awards. Led his team to 6 Playoff berths, 2 Pennants, and its 1st World Series win.

You want another candidate? The next one still alive, at 30th, is Schmidt's Phillies teammate, Steve Carlton. A pitcher. Let's move on. The next living player, and the top player then active, at 34th, was Barry Bonds. This was before Bonds started setting records like crazy. This was also before we knew he had started using steroids. So, he's disqualified, even if he was "a Hall-of-Famer before he started cheating." After all, the appearance that he didn't need to cheat to be great, and then cheated anyway, makes things worse.

Next, at 39th, is Greg Maddux. Another pitcher. Next living, at 41st, is Nolan Ryan. Another pitcher. Next living, at 48th, is Reggie Jackson. He's my favorite athlete of all time, and he has been known to show some ego. But I don't think even Reggie would call himself "baseball's greatest living player."

Next, at 51st, is Rickey Henderson. Here is another legitimate candidate, even if he surpassed Reggie, DiMaggio, Ty Cobb and everybody else as baseball's supreme egotist. Baseball's greatest base stealer (1,406), he collected over 3,000 hits (3,055), had a surprising amount of power (297 home runs), and is baseball's all-time leader in runs scored (2,295).

His lifetime batting average is just .279, but, A, that's higher than Schmidt (.267), Bench (also .267) or Reggie (.262); and, B, his on-base percentage is .401 (higher than Schmidt at .380, Reggie at .356 and Bench at .342), because he was once the all-time leader in walks (2,190, surpassed by Bonds, mainly due to the intentionals, a backlash against his cheating). And he was a winner, reaching the postseason 8 times with 5 different teams. (In 1985, the Yankees fell just short, so it was almost 9 times with 6 teams.) This also includes 3 Pennants, which includes World Series wins with 2 different teams.

In 2022, ESPN had an updated list. Their top 10 players who are alive as of Mays' death are: Bonds, 8th; Pedro Martinez, 11th; Ken Griffey Jr., 13th; Maddux, 14th; the still-active Mike Trout, 15th; Roger Clemens, 17th; Schmidt, 18th; Henderson, 23rd; Randy Johnson, 24th; and Alex Rodriguez, 26th.

After that: Derek Jeter, 28th; Bench, 29th; Albert Pujols, 30th; Mariano Rivera, 31st; Koufax, 32nd; Rose, 34th.

First, let's dump the pitchers: Pedro (11th among all players? A damn joke), Maddux, Clemens, Johnson, Rivera, Koufax. Next, let's dump the steroid cheats, Bonds and A-Rod. Finally, those we've already considered: Schmidt, Henderson, Bench, Rose.

That leaves Griffey, Trout, Jeter and Pujols. All 4 of whom, as far as we know, were or, in the case of the still-active Trout, are, clean.

Okay, let's get serious: Trout doesn't make the Top 100 players. If, for whatever reason, he never plays another game, he leaves with 1,648 hits, 378 of which are home runs. That's fewer home runs than Frank Howard and Dale Murphy, for whom home runs were kind of their thing, and neither one is in the Baseball Hall of Fame. I don't care that he already has 3 MVPs: Trout is not a Hall-of-Famer yet.

That leaves Griffey, Jeter and Pujols. Jeter has more hits than any human being who, today, is both alive and eligible to be in baseball: 3,465. He had a .310 lifetime batting average and 358 stolen bases. And, in his time, he was baseball's biggest winner. But he only hit 260 home runs, and never won an MVP, although he was robbed of at least 2 and maybe a 3rd.

That leaves Griffey, with 630 home runs, and Pujols, with 3,384 hits (not that far behind Jeter), 703 of which were home runs. Griffey had 10 Gold Gloves, Pujols 2. Pujols had the postseason success, Griffey didn't. (Remember the 1995 ALDS all you want, but he never played in a World Series.)   

Is it just me, or does this picture look like

one of those baseball cards of players who recently changed teams,

we used to call "Topps airbrush jobs"?

So, I would say that, for the title of Baseball's Greatest Living Player, there are 4 legitimate candidates. In chronological order, they are: Mike Schmidt, Rickey Henderson, Ken Griffey Jr. and Albert Pujols.

If Junior hadn't tailed off a bit when he went to the Cincinnati Reds in 2000, he could have made the question easy to answer. Same for Phat Albert, if he hadn't tailed off a bit when he went to the Los Angeles Angels in 2012: He could have put it away. If Junior hadn't had so many injuries, and if Albert hadn't gone to Anaheim, one of them might have hit 763 home runs to surpass Bonds, and make this an easy answer.

So, of the four, which one is Baseball's Greatest Living Player? Henderson would tell you it's him. The other 3 wouldn't claim that for themselves. Perhaps that's another reason why each of them might deserve it.

Willie Mays, 1931-2024

Say, hey, do you know of any other baseball player who's enough of a cultural icon that his name has been worked into The Honeymooners, Peanuts and Star Trek? And was on What's My Line? Twice?

Nope, not even Babe Ruth, the one and only player selected ahead of Mays in The Sporting News' 1999 list of the 100 Greatest Baseball Players.

Willie Howard Mays Jr. was born on May 6, 1951 in Westfield, Alabama, and grew up in nearby Fairfield, both outside Birmingham. His father, Willie Sr., nicknamed Kitty-Kat, had played semi-pro baseball, though not officially in what became known as the Negro Leagues. Willie Jr. was signed to play in those, in 1948, by the Birmingham Black Barons. He was just 17, but was good enough to help them win the Pennant, before losing the Negro World Series to the Pittsburgh-based Homestead Grays.

While playing with the Black Barons in 1949, he was pursued by several teams. He could have ended up with the Brooklyn Dodgers, on the same team with Jackie Robinson and Roy Campanella. He would have played center field, and the Dodgers would have solved their left field problem by moving Duke Snider over. But the Dodgers couldn't make the deal.

He could have ended up with the Boston Red Sox, because they had offered him a tryout, because they had offered his manager in Birmingham, Piper Davis, a contract. But a Sox scout told team owner Tom Yawkey that Mays "couldn't hit a curveball." He was 18 years old, and had never yet attempted to hit a white man's curveball. And Davis was too old to keep, and was released. And that's why the Red Sox became the last major league team to integrate, in 1959. And that's also how the Red Sox could have ended up with Ted Williams in left field and Willie Mays in center field, but didn't.

The Boston Braves were also interested in Mays. But they had a quota on the number of black players in their system, and they'd already hit it. So they could have had Willie Mays in center field and Hank Aaron in right field -- perhaps not soon enough to save them from moving to Milwaukee in 1953, but the Braves could have dominated the National League for years to come.

Or, the New York Giants could have. Because their scout, Ed Montague, signed Willie, they were also interested in Hank. "I had the Giants' contract in my hand," Aaron would later say, "but the Braves offered $50 a month more. That's the only thing that kept Willie Mays and me from being teammates: Fifty dollars." $50 in 1952, with inflation, is about $552 in 2022 money. On such hinge moments does the history of a sport sometimes hang in the balance.

For 1950, the Giants assigned him to their Class A team, the Trenton Giants. This was the end of the line for minor-league baseball in New Jersey: The Giants moved both their Trenton and their Jersey City farm teams after the season, while the New York Yankees moved their Newark Bears farm team a year earlier. The Negro Leagues' Newark Eagles folded after 1951.

Negro League stars being picked up by the white majors hurt them, but what really killed the Negro Leagues and many of the minor-league teams, and in some cases entire minor leagues, was television: Why should a fan get in his car and drive 20 miles, and then pay to get in, to watch a minor-league team when he could stay home, and watch the closest major league team for free, on a TV set he'd already paid for, with food and drinks he'd already paid for and didn't have to stand on line for?

Mays did well enough with Trenton that he was promoted to the Giants' top farm team for 1951, the Class AAA Minneapolis Millers. He was batting .477, and had just turned 20. Clearly, he could hit a major league white man's curveball. So, on May 25, 1951, he made his debut with the Giants. Wearing Number 14 -- he would soon switch to 24 -- playing center field and batting 3rd, he went 0-for-5 against the Philadelphia Phillies at Shibe Park in Philadelphia. The Giants won, anyway, 8-5.

The next day, against Phils ace Robin Roberts, he went 0-for-3 with 2 walks. The Giants won, anyway, 2-0. The next day, he went 0-for-4. The Giants won, anyway, again 2-0. He had played flawlessly in center field. But at the plate, he was 0-for-12. His batting average was .000. His slugging percentage was .000. Counting the 2 walks, his on-base percentage was .143.

He told Giant manager Leo Durocher that he didn't think he was ready. Leo showed confidence him, saying, "I don't care if you go 0-for-50. I'm the manager, and you're my center fielder."

The next night, May 28, was Mays' 1st home game, at the Polo Grounds at 157th Street and 8th Avenue in Upper Manhattan, with Harlem to the south, Washington Heights to the west, and the Harlem River and The Bronx to the north and east -- including Yankee Stadium, one mile due east. The Giants were starting a series with the Boston Braves.

In the 1st inning, the Braves -- who did not yet have Aaron, or their other Hall of Fame hitter of the era, Eddie Mathews, either -- tagged Sheldon Jones for 3 runs in the top of the 1st inning. In the bottom of the 1st, batting 3rd for the 4th game in a row, was Mays. The Braves' starting pitcher was Warren Spahn, also a future Hall-of-Famer.

The distance from the pitching rubber to home plate is 60 feet 6 inches. Spahn threw him a fastball, and, after the game, told the press, "For the 1st 60 feet, that was a hell of a pitch." Mays hit it over the left field roof. It was the 1st of 3,293 career hits, the 1st of 660 home runs, and the 1st of 1,909 runs batted in. But it was the only run Spahn allowed, as the Braves won, 4-1.

Mays finished the game 1-for-4. He was now batting .063, on-base .261, slugging .250. Many years later, years in which Mays had terrorized the National League with his hitting, running and fielding, Stan Musial of the St. Louis Cardinals jokingly told Spahn, "If you'd just struck him out, we might have been rid of him forever!"

Mays' performance in the field had led to the moving of Bobby Thomson from center field to 3rd base. When Thomson hit "The Shot Heard 'Round the World" to give the Giants the Pennant, a little more than 4 months later, Mays was on deck. He had finished a season in which he batted .274 with 20 home runs, 61 runs batted in, and some sensational catches, which led to him telling his teammates, "Say, hey, didn't you see that play?" Which led to him being nicknamed "The Say Hey Kid." He was named the NL's Rookie of the Year.

*

Willie spent most of the 1952 season, and all of the 1953 season, in the U.S. Army, drafted during the Korean War. He spent most of his service at Fort Eustis in Newport News, Virginia. He was discharged in time to rejoin the Giants during Spring Training in 1954. He won the NL batting title and its Most Valuable Player award, hitting 51 home runs.

He also won over the kids of New York, playing stickball in the streets near the Polo Grounds. He won over everybody, with his infectious enthusiasm, yelling, "Say, hey, did you see that play?" whenever he made a great play, which was often. He became known as "The Say Hey Kid."

He also got the greatest song any baseball player has ever had, sung by The Treniers. That instrumental bridge, which includes "Take Me Out to the Ball Game," is a landmark: You can almost hear the transition from the Big Band Era of the 1930s and '40s to the epoch of Rock and Roll. Of course, these black singers had to call the 23-year-old Mays "a growing boy." And while he could hit it "farther than Campy can," they had to site a black slugger like Roy Campanella. God forbid they say he hit the ball further than a white slugger like Campy's Brooklyn Dodger teammate, Duke Snider. Even though he did.

Game 1 of the World Series was played at the Polo Grounds in New York. The game was tied 2-2 in the top of the 8th, but the Cleveland Indians got Larry Doby on 2nd base and Al Rosen on 1st with nobody out. Giant manager Leo Durocher pulled starting pitcher Sal Maglie, and brought in Don Liddle, a lefthander, to face the lefty slugger Vic Wertz, and only Wertz.

Liddle pitched, and Wertz swung, and drove the ball out to center field. The Polo Grounds was shaped more like a football stadium, so its foul poles were incredibly close: 279 feet to left field and 257 to right. In addition, the upper deck overhung the field a little, so the distances were actually even closer. But if you didn't pull the ball, it was going to stay in play. Most of the center field fence was 425 feet from home plate. A recess in center field, leading to a blockhouse that served as both teams' clubhouses -- why they were in center field, instead of under the stands, connected to the dugouts, is a mystery a long-dead architect will have to answer -- was 483 feet away.

At this moment, Mays was, in the public consciousness, where Babe Ruth was in May 1920, where Joe DiMaggio and Ted Williams were in May 1941, where Mickey Mantle was in May 1956, where Reggie Jackson was in September 1977, where Roger Clemens was in April 1986, where Derek Jeter was in September 1996, where David Ortiz was in September 2004: A star, well-known and popular, but not yet a legend.

Mays ran back to try to catch the ball. In mid-stride, he thumped his fist into his mitt. His teammates, who had seen this gesture before, knew that this meant that he thought he would catch it. But most fans, who didn't watch him every day, didn't know this. Watching on television (NBC, Channel 4 in New York), they figured the ball would go over his head, scoring Doby and Rosen, and that Wertz, not exactly fleet of foot, had a chance at a triple, or even an inside-the-park home run.

Willie said many times that he was already thinking of the throw back to the infield, hoping to hold Doby to only 3rd base. With his back to the ball all the way, he caught the ball over his head, stopped, pivoted, and threw the ball back to the infield. Doby did get only to 3rd.

The announcers were Jack Brickhouse, who normally did the home games for both of Chicago's teams, the Cubs and the White Sox, but was the lead announcer for NBC in this Series; and Russ Hodges, the usual Giants announcer, made nationally famous 3 years earlier when Bobby Thomson's home run made him yell, "The Giants win the Pennant!" over and over again.

Brickhouse: "There's a long drive, way back in center field, way back, back, it is... Oh, what a catch by Mays! The runner on second, Doby, is able to tag and go to third. Willie Mays just brought this crowd to its feet with a catch which must have been an optical illusion to a lot of people. Boy! See where that 483-foot mark is in center field? The ball itself... Russ, you know this ballpark better than anyone else I know. Had to go about 460, didn't it?"

Hodges: "It certainly did, and I don't know how Willie did it, but he's been doing it all year."

It has been argued by many, including Bob Feller, the pitching legend sitting on the Indians' bench that day, that the reason so much is made of this catch is that it was in New York, it was in the World Series, and it was on television. "It was far from the best catch I've ever seen," Feller said. Mays himself would say he'd made better catches. But none more consequential.

Durocher yanked Liddle, and brought in Marv Grissom. Upon reaching the Giant dugout, Liddle told his teammates, "Well, I got my man." Yeah, Don. You got him. As Jim Bouton, then a 15-year-old Giant fan who'd recently moved from Rochelle Park, Bergen County, New Jersey to the Chicago suburb of Chicago Heights, Illinois, would later say, "Yeah, surrrre!"

Grissom walked Dale Mitchell to load the bases with only 1 out. But he struck out Dave Pope, and got Jim Hegan to fly out, to end the threat. When the Giants got back to the dugout, they told Willie what a hard catch it was. He said, "You kiddin'? I had that one all the way."

The game went to extra innings. Future Hall-of-Famer Bob Lemon went the distance for the Tribe, but in the bottom of the 10th, he walked Mays, who stole 2nd. Then he intentionally walked Hank Thompson to set up an inning-ending double play. It didn't happen: Durocher sent Dusty Rhodes up to pinch-hit for left fielder Monte Irvin, and Rhodes hit the ball down the right-field line. It just sort of squeaked into the stands.

On the film, it looks a little like a fan reached out, and it bounced off his hand. A proto-Jeffrey Maier? To this day, no one has seriously argued that the call should be overturned.

The game was over: Giants 5, Indians 2. The Indians, heavily favored to win the Series, never recovered, and the Giants swept. Willie turned out to be the last living player in both the Bobby Thomson Game and in the game where he made The Catch. He was also the last living player from the "past" segment of Terry Cashman's 1981 song "Talkin' Baseball (Willie, Mickey and the Duke)."

*

For 4 glorious years -- 1954, 1955, 1956 and 1957 -- there were 3 Hall of Fame center fielders in New York: Mays of the Giants, Snider of the Dodgers, and Mickey Mantle of the Yankees. Snider did not end up with career stats anywhere near those of Mays and Mantle, but, for a while, the comparison was legit. It ended after the 1957 season, when the Dodgers moved to Los Angeles, and the Giants, including Mays, moved to San Francisco.

San Francisco is a very provincial city, preferring its own people to outsiders. Orlando Cepeda was the 1st Giant hero who began in San Francisco, Juan Marichal the 2nd, Willie McCovey the 3rd. They've always been more popular there than Mays. Frank Conniff of the New York Journal-American, perhaps the only man ever to interview both men, wrote, "This is the damnedest city. They cheer Khrushchev and boo Willie Mays."

On April 30, 1961, Mays hit 4 home runs in a game against the Milwaukee Braves. He helped the Giants win another Pennant in 1962. He should have been named NL MVP, but it went to Maury Wills of the Dodgers, after setting a new single-season record with 104 stolen bases. He did win another in 1965, hitting a career-high 52 home runs, but the Giants didn't win another Pennant until long after he retired.

The Giants lost the World Series to the Yankees. But not before Clete Boyer had the experience of hitting a ball, and, by his own admission, "My first thought was, 'Hello, double!' and then I realize, 'Oh, shit, he's out there!'" And many was the time when he hit a drive, and someone said, "The only man who could have caught it, hit it."

For a while, there was a question as to who would get to Babe Ruth's career record of 714 home runs first: Mays, or Mantle. On August 2, 1965, Mays hit his 478th homer, surpassing Mantle. On September 13, he hit his 500th. On May 4, 1966, he hit his 512th, surpassing an earlier Giant, Mel Ott, as the NL's all-time leader. On June 27, he hit his 522nd, surpassing Ted Williams for 3rd place, all-time. On August 17, he hit his 535th, surpassing Jimmie Foxx for 2nd.

But in 1968, Hank Aaron of the Atlanta Braves, only 34 years old, hit his 500th, and, suddenly, there was a new contender. Mays hit his 600th on September 22, 1969, but was slowing down. On July 3, 1970, he collected his 3,000th career hit. This made him the 2nd player to have 3,000 hits and 500 home runs. Aaron beat him to the distinction by a few weeks.

The Giants won the NL Western Division title in 1971, but, clearly, at 40, Mays was no longer the team's most important player -- even though he was now making more money than any player ever had, $160,000 -- about $1.24 million in 2024 money.

On May 11, 1972, the Giants traded him to the Mets, even-up, for Charlie Williams, a pitcher who lasted in the major leagues from 1971 to 1978, and had a career record of 23-22. It's not fair to say that he was a bad pitcher, but it is fair to say that being traded for Mays was the only interesting thing about his career.

Before his 1st game with the Mets, on May 14, against the Giants, Mays was presented on the field with a mockup of a San Francisco cable car. He hadn't played a home game in New York in nearly 15 years, but he was still beloved there. He led off, played 1st base, and, of course, wore Number 24. Except for a few games at the start of his career, when he wore 14, he had always worn 24. There didn't seem to be any significance to it: It was just the number he was assigned at the time.

In every city where he had a home, he applied to have the last 4 digits of his phone number be 2424. However, his California license plate didn't have the number in it: It read "SAY HEY."

Peanuts cartoonist Charles Schulz, a native of St. Paul, Minnesota who had seen Mays play for the the Minneapolis Millers, and then had moved to Northern California and become a Giants fan, once showed Charlie Brown remembering his locker combination of 3-24-7 by telling Linus Van Pelt, "Babe Ruth was Number 3, Willie Mays is Number 24, and Mickey Mantle is Number 7!"

And in that return game with the Mets, he hit a home run, the 647th of his career, and it provided the winning run, as the Mets beat the Giants, 5-4 at Shea Stadium. 

As with Mantle's 500th career home run, 5 years to the day before, Mays should have retired right there. As with Mantle, the next year and a half in uniform did him no good. On June 10, Aaron hit his 649th, to surpass him for 2nd place on the all-time list. Mays, once considered the likeliest player to break Babe Ruth's career record of 714 home runs, wrapped it up after the 1973 season with 660, seeing Aaron break the record at the start of the next season.

On September 25, 1973, Willie Mays Night was held at Shea Stadium, and he told the crowd, "I look at the kids over here, the way they're playing, the way they're fighting for themselves, and it tells me one thing: 'Willie, say good by to America.'" The Mets won the Pennant, but the entire country saw his last games in the World Series, and he looked terrible.

He retired with a lifetime batting average of .302, a .384 on-base percentage, a .557 slugging percentage, a 155 OPS+; 3,283 hits including 523 doubles, 140 triples and 660 home runs, and 1,903 runs batted in. He stole 339 bases, and the only player with both more home runs and more stolen bases than Mays is Barry Bonds. He still holds the record for putouts by an outfielder, 7,095.

He appeared in 24 All-Star Games, tied with Stan Musial for 2nd-most, behind Aaron's 25. The All-Star Game's MVP award is now named for Mays. He won 12 Gold Gloves, and would have won more if the award had started before 1957.

He was elected to the Hall of Fame in his 1st year of eligibility, 1979, and the Giants retired his Number 24. They gave him a statue outside their new ballpark, now named Oracle Park, whose mailing address is 24 Willie Mays Plaza.

He often wore a cap with just "G" for Giants,

instead of "NY" for New York or "SF" for San Francisco.

Original Mets owner Joan Payson, who had previously been the only stockholder of the Giants to vote against moving to San Francisco, said that no Met would ever wear Number 24 again. She died during the 1975 postseason, and, since then, 3 Mets have worn 24: Kelvin Torve for 7 games in 1990 before fans protested, Rickey Henderson (at least, another Hall-of-Famer) for 152 games in 1999 and 2000, and Robinson Canó for 168 games from 2019 to 2022. (Before Mays, the best Met to wear 24 was Art Shamsky on the 1969 "Miracle" team.)

Living in Atherton, California, on the Peninsula between San Francisco and San Jose, Mays went to many Giants functions, including their World Series appearances in 1989, 2002, 2010, 2012 and 2014; and the milestone home runs of Barry Bonds, including the 756th home run that allowed Bonds to surpass Aaron as the all-time leader -- by whatever means.

Barry was the son of Bobby Bonds, a teammate of Willie's, late in his career. Bobby named Willie Barry's godfather. When Barry got to the major leagues with the Pittsburgh Pirates, he wore Number 24 in tribute to Willie. He couldn't wear that when he signed as a free agent with the Giants, so he switched to his father's 25.

Mays did not go back to Met games very often. His appearances included their 1977 Old-Timers' Day, where he appeared in a Met uniform, along with Mantle, Snider and Joe DiMaggio in their respective uniforms; the 2008 closing of Shea Stadium; and the 2013 All-Star Game at Citi Field. The Mets retired his Number 24 on August 27, 2022, as part of their 60th Anniversary celebrations. He was too frail to attend, but some of his former Met teammates were on hand.

He married Marghuerite Wendell Chapman in 1956. They adopted a five-day-old baby named Michael in 1959, and divorced in 1963. In 1971, after dating for a few years, Mays married Mae Louise Allen, a child-welfare worker in San Francisco. She died in 2013.

In 1999, The Sporting News ranked Mays 2nd to Babe Ruth on their list of the 100 Greatest Baseball Players. ESPN backed that up in their 2022 ranking of the Top 100. The argument for Mays being ahead of Ruth is not just that Mays was great defensively as well as offensively, but that did what he did in a fully-integrated major leagues, whereas Ruth never faced black players. Both arguments are flawed: Ruth did face black players in postseason "barnstorming" games, and he was a great defensive player, because he was a great pitcher. Mays never threw a pitch in a regular-season game.

Willie Mays died today, June 18, 2024, at the age of 93. Some of the reaction:

* Dave Winfield, born the day of the Bobby Thomson Game, and his 1st season in the majors, 1973, was Mays' last: "It was my pleasure and honor to have played against arguably the best @mlb ⁦@MLBPA⁩ player of all time. And to call #WillieMays my friend is incrediblyspecial #RIP “Say Hey” Kid"

* Keith Hernandez, former Mets 1st baseman, who grew up in the San Francisco Bay Area: "He was a great player. The best player I ever saw."

* Derek Jeter: "One of the best to ever play the game & even a better person."

* CC Sabathia, former Yankee pitcher, who also grew up in the Bay Area: "RIP Willie Mays. You changed the game forever and inspired kids like me to chase our dream. Thank you for everything that you did on and off the field. Always in our hearts."

* Jimmy Rollins, former Philadelphia Phillies shortstop and Captain, another Bay Area native: "Willie Mays was a legend amongst legends... Baseball lived deep inside of his heart."

* Earvin "Magic" Johnson, basketball legend and owner of the arch-rival Los Angeles Dodgers: "I'm devastated to hear about the passing of the legendary Hall of Famer Willie Mays."

* Billie Jean King, tennis legend, whose brother, Randy Moffitt, pitched for the Giants and was a teammate of Mays': "The great Willie Mays has passed away. It was a privilege to know him. We were both honored by @MLB in 2010 with the Beacon Award, given to civil rights pioneers. He was a such a kind soul, who gifted my brother Randy a new glove and a television during his rookie year with the

@SFGiants

. My deepest condolences to his family. He will be missed."

* Barry Bonds: "I am beyond devastated & overcome with emotion. I have no words to describe what you mean to me- you helped shape me to be who I am today. Thank you for being my Godfather and always being there. Give my dad a hug for me. Rest in peace Willie, I love you forever."

With his death, there are 7 surviving former New York Giants: Joey Amalfitano, Ozzie Virgil, Ray Crone, Jackie Brandt, Al Worthington, Joe Margoneri and Bill White.

There are 9 surviving players from the MLB All-Century Team selected in 1999: Sandy Koufax, Pete Rose, Nolan Ryan, Johnny Bench, Mike Schmidt, Cal Ripken, Roger Clemens, Mark McGwire and Ken Griffey Jr.

And Rocky Colavito is now the last surviving player from the 1960 TV show Home Run Derby.

Ted Williams, who died in 2002 but had the opportunity to see his whole career, summed him up: "If there's a guy who was born to play baseball, it was Willie Mays."