Say Hey!

Today is Willie Mays' 89th birthday. I wouldn't argue for a minute against anyone proclaiming him to be the greatest ballplayer ever. There's been plenty of great offensive players and there's been plenty of great defensive players, but there's no equal to Willie when it comes to being such a great offensive AND defensive player.

A few interesting things about Willie:

1) Was on deck as a rookie when Bobby Thomson hit "The Shot Heard 'Round the World."

2) In the World Series his rookie season, Mickey Mantle had his knee shredded while chasing down a fly ball because that dickhead Joe DiMaggio, who resented Mickey all year and refused to speak to him, was late calling a charging Mantle off. Witnesses throughout the ballpark said it sounded like a gun had been shot, and this was the injury that unraveled Mickey's career into being one of the greatest "Waht ifs?" of all time. The Giant who hit that ball? Willie Mays.

3) If you're a fan of A Charlie Brown Christmas, you can thank Willie Mays.

4) Willie's famous catch in the 1954 World Series off Vic Wertz led to one of the greatest lines ever. Left-handed Don Liddle was brought in only to pitch to Wertz, a left-hander. After giving up a ball that would have been a mammoth home run in any park but was turned into a double play thanks to maybe the single greatest catch in baseball history, he casually flipped the ball to Marv Grissom, walking on the mound to relive him, and said, "Well, I got my man." :)

5) Randomly reading Willie's Wikipedia one day, before it got deleted I noticed our 27th President was Willie Mays' father.

6) Willie began his major league career on a bad note, with no hits in his first 20 at bats. On his 21st at-bat he hit a home-run up and over the left field roof of the Polo Grounds off future Hall of Famer Warren Spahn. Spahn later joked, "I'll never forgive myself. We might have gotten rid of Willie forever if I'd only struck him out."

7) Thanks to PBS you can watch the episode including Willie from Ken Burns' incredible Baseball!!!!!



HAPPY BIRTHDAY WILLIE!! :)