{"id":1108,"date":"2013-01-20T13:18:35","date_gmt":"2013-01-20T18:18:35","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/newyorkgiantspreservationsociety.com\/?p=1108"},"modified":"2013-01-20T13:18:35","modified_gmt":"2013-01-20T18:18:35","slug":"saying-hey-to-willie-by-anthony-sulla-heffinger","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/newyorkgiantspreservationsociety.com\/?p=1108","title":{"rendered":"SAYING HEY TO WILLIE!! By ANTHONY SULLA-HEFFINGER"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"https:\/\/newyorkgiantspreservationsociety.com\/?attachment_id=1109\" rel=\"attachment wp-att-1109\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/newyorkgiantspreservationsociety.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/01\/20_1s073_sulla-heffinger-140x100.jpg\" alt=\"20_1s073_sulla-heffinger--140x100\" width=\"140\" height=\"100\" class=\"alignnone size-full wp-image-1109\" \/><\/a>\u201c<\/p>\n<p>A group of lucky fans got to spend yesterday morning with the Commissioner\u2019s Trophy, Giants president and CEO Larry Baer, general manager Brian Sabean \u2014 and Hall of Famer Willie Mays at the Westin Hotel in Midtown.<br \/>\n\u201cI am always a Giant,\u201d Mays said. \u201cThe Giants are all over, we\u2019re in New York, we\u2019re in San Francisco. We\u2019re everywhere. This organization is something special.\u201d<br \/>\nMays addressed both the New York Giants Historical Society and the New York Giants Preservation Society and received standing ovations from the crowd on five separate occasions.<br \/>\nMays greeted fans yesterday in midtown Manhattan.The Hall of Fame outfielder played with the Giants for 20 seasons, six of them while the team was in the Big Apple, and played parts of two seasons with the Mets.<br \/>\n<!--more--><br \/>\n\u201cI\u2019d like to say thank you to New York,\u201d he said. \u201cYou don\u2019t have to say New York and San Francisco are separate. You\u2019re wearing a uniform that says Giants. It doesn\u2019t matter where you are.\u201d<br \/>\nMays reminisced about his remarkable playing career, during which he amassed 660 home runs, but also touched on current events in the baseball world, most notably the recent Hall of Fame voting ballot.<br \/>\n\u201cI think you have to look at the writers,\u201d Mays said. \u201cAt least every year &#8230; someone is good enough to get in, but that\u2019s not my choice. The Hall of Fame relies on people coming up there and spending money, so I think every year someone should get in.\u201d<br \/>\nThe gathering was the second time in three years the Giants were able to give back to their New York fan base. The team brought the World Series Trophy to the city in a similar event following the 2010 season.<br \/>\n\u201cThere\u2019s a lot of orange and black in the room, which is fantastic,\u201d Baer said. \u201cWe feel like we never left New York. We want to honor [the years we spent in New York] because it feels like we\u2019re baseball royalty.\u201d<br \/>\n* Sabean all but confirmed closer Brian Wilson would not be returning to the Giants this season.<br \/>\nThe only way I can see him coming back is [on a low-base, high-incentive contract], but this time I see him more in the mindset to do that with somebody else,\u201d Sabean said.<br \/>\nThe Mets are among several teams that have expressed interest in Wilson<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>\u201c A group of lucky fans got to spend yesterday morning with the Commissioner\u2019s Trophy, Giants president and CEO Larry Baer, general manager Brian Sabean \u2014 and Hall of Famer Willie Mays at the Westin Hotel in Midtown. \u201cI am &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/newyorkgiantspreservationsociety.com\/?p=1108\">Continue reading <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1108","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/newyorkgiantspreservationsociety.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1108","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/newyorkgiantspreservationsociety.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/newyorkgiantspreservationsociety.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newyorkgiantspreservationsociety.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newyorkgiantspreservationsociety.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1108"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/newyorkgiantspreservationsociety.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1108\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1110,"href":"https:\/\/newyorkgiantspreservationsociety.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1108\/revisions\/1110"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/newyorkgiantspreservationsociety.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1108"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newyorkgiantspreservationsociety.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1108"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newyorkgiantspreservationsociety.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1108"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}