RIP Willie Mays

[Hangman]

They Say Hey Kid passed away today and it was just announced by the Giants. One of the best players and people ever.

 

[Hangman]

Willie Mays, San Francisco Giants legend and MLB all-time great, is dead

Willie Mays, the iconic “Say Hey Kid” widely considered MLB’s best-ever player, died, days before the San Francisco Giants’ Rickwood Field tribute game.

www.sfchronicle.com

 

[H2S]

Incredible human being... RIP

 

[Think McFly Think]

Incredible human being... RIP

RIP Willie, if not the best ever, he’s gotta be in every baseball fan’s top 3 but as far as what he meant to the game in all facets, the man was #1.

 

[jeep99tj]

RIP. Greatest CF to ever play the game.

 

[navamind]

fuck. one of the absolute GOATs, though his impact on the sport goes WAY beyond his playing time. RIP.

 

[Tai Chi≈Surfing]

He's in MLB's upper pantheon with the all time greats.


R.I.P.

Willie Mays - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

 

[DJ]

RIP.

 

[Xeliou66]

RIP - one of the all time baseball greats. A legend.

 

[Hank Kingsley]

A long life, unlike so many athletes of today.

Well done Willie. Well done.

 

[Sir Robin Of Camelot]

 

[Hornsstampede2.0]

Reading his baseball reference page is one of those things that still blows my mind.
Dude was somehow criminally under-rated in the context of modern day analytic WAR. (23 seasons of career average of 8.2!!)
He might have won even more MVPs had that stuff been more considered.

He was Ted Williams/Babe Ruth at the plate no doubt,
But he mixed it with otherworldly slick fielding and speed that made him maybe the greatest defensive player (leader putouts alltime CF).

RIP

 

[Judge Fudge]

RIP legend

 

[Tai Chi≈Surfing]

He was one of my favorite players when I was a kid growing up in Queens.
Then even more so when he became a NY Met in '72 while I was in HS.
Great memories.


I met him years later here in SF at a book signing for his "Say Hey" autobiography in 1988...and the line to get into the bookstore went all the way down the block and around the next corner near Union Square...then after maybe an hour or so later as it was finally my turn to enter with the next group of 10 folks, he noticed I was wearing a Mets cap and asked why...I told him I was a native NYer/Mets fan and he was one of my baseball idols as a kid.
He smiled, said thank you young man, then shook my hand and asked if I like living in SF...and if I've ever been to Candlestick Park to see a Giants game....I said yes I love this city..and told him that I have been to the "stick" numerous times for Giants games....then he wanted to know which player on the Giants I liked most...I told him it was ex- Mets OFer Kevin Mitchell.....his smile got bigger as he was signing his book I had purchased and said good answer, and that he (Mitchell) was his favorite too.

I will never forget that brief moment and brush with greatness.

 

[Tai Chi≈Surfing]

 

[calsnowskier]

View attachment 365235

I typically don’t like when teams reach outside their own history to honor a player who wasn’t “theirs” with a retired number (Padres/Garvey, Rays/Boggs just to name probably the two worst examples of this). But the Mets honoring Mays is the exception to that rule. The Mets are essentially the bastard child of the Giants and Dodgers, and the Mets were honoring Mays’ time as a Giant in NY. I thought that was a cool thing the Mets did.

 

[Tai Chi≈Surfing]

I typically don’t like when teams reach outside their own history to honor a player who wasn’t “theirs” with a retired number (Padres/Garvey, Rays/Boggs just to name probably the two worst examples of this). But the Mets honoring Mays is the exception to that rule. The Mets are essentially the bastard child of the Giants and Dodgers, and the Mets were honoring Mays’ time as a Giant in NY. I thought that was a cool thing the Mets did.

I do agree with most of this, however...
....I wouldn't go so far as to call them that...but rather a nephew of one, and perhaps a distant cousin of the other.

 

[calsnowskier]

I do agree with most of this, however...
....I wouldn't go so far as to call them that...but rather a nephew of one, and perhaps a distant cousin of the other.

The Mets are not the child of the Giants/Dodgers in the same way that the Sharks are the child of the Stars (iirc, the Stars gave up a bunch of players to populate the new Sharks franchise so that they could move to Dallas instead of San Jose). But the Mets adopted much of the heart of the Dodgers and Giants histories (the Orange and Blue, for example) to attempt to mend to broken hearts of the New York fans.

 

[Tai Chi≈Surfing]

The Mets are not the child of the Giants/Dodgers in the same way that the Sharks are the child of the Stars (iirc, the Stars gave up a bunch of players to populate the new Sharks franchise so that they could move to Dallas instead of San Jose). But the Mets adopted much of the heart of the Dodgers and Giants histories (the Orange and Blue, for example) to attempt to mend to broken hearts of the New York fans.

 

[calsnowskier]

Are you denying the links between the Giants/Dodgers and the Mets? That isn’t really theory. That is pretty much accepted truth…