{"id":1926,"date":"2015-01-27T18:54:21","date_gmt":"2015-01-27T23:54:21","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/newyorkgiantspreservationsociety.com\/?p=1926"},"modified":"2015-01-27T18:55:42","modified_gmt":"2015-01-27T23:55:42","slug":"1926","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/newyorkgiantspreservationsociety.com\/?p=1926","title":{"rendered":"THIRD TIME\u2019S ANOTHER CHARM"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"https:\/\/newyorkgiantspreservationsociety.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/01\/MAYS-ENTERS.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/newyorkgiantspreservationsociety.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/01\/MAYS-ENTERS-1024x682.jpg\" alt=\"MAYS ENTERS\" width=\"584\" height=\"389\" class=\"alignnone size-large wp-image-1928\" srcset=\"https:\/\/newyorkgiantspreservationsociety.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/01\/MAYS-ENTERS.jpg 1024w, https:\/\/newyorkgiantspreservationsociety.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/01\/MAYS-ENTERS-300x200.jpg 300w, https:\/\/newyorkgiantspreservationsociety.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/01\/MAYS-ENTERS-450x300.jpg 450w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 584px) 100vw, 584px\" \/><\/a><br \/>\nBY GREG PRINCE<\/p>\n<p>From NYGPS Member and Mets Blogger (FAITH &#038; FEAR IN FLUSHING) extraordinaire Greg Prince<br \/>\nA GREAT REVIEW OF THE EVENT!<\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"wp-embedded-content\" data-secret=\"BujYVzrv8b\"><p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.faithandfearinflushing.com\/2015\/01\/26\/third-times-another-charm\/\">Third Time\u2019s Another Charm<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" class=\"wp-embedded-content\" sandbox=\"allow-scripts\" security=\"restricted\" style=\"position: absolute; clip: rect(1px, 1px, 1px, 1px);\" title=\"&#8220;Third Time\u2019s Another Charm&#8221; &#8212; Faith and Fear in Flushing\" src=\"https:\/\/www.faithandfearinflushing.com\/2015\/01\/26\/third-times-another-charm\/embed\/#?secret=BujYVzrv8b\" data-secret=\"BujYVzrv8b\" width=\"584\" height=\"329\" frameborder=\"0\" marginwidth=\"0\" marginheight=\"0\" scrolling=\"no\"><\/iframe><br \/>\nIs there any better antidote to chilly days than Willie Mays? Is there any doubt that No. 24 could melt the 24 inches of snow projected to blanket our Metropolitan Area if you gave him a bat, a glove and another go with 24-year-old legs? Is there a sunnier thought 24 days in advance of Pitchers &#038; Catchers than that which results when one considers the greatest center fielder there ever was?<br \/>\nSay no to all of the above because, Say Hey, Willie Mays was in town over the weekend, reminding all of us lucky enough to spend a few minutes in his presence that greatness doesn\u2019t grow old. It just gets better with age.<br \/>\nThe Willie Mays I saw on Saturday was the Willie Mays who acts as ambassador for the game he made his own a scant 64 years ago. There are many Willie Mayses. Willie the phenom from 1951. Willie the megastar by 1954. Willie the idol of millions forever after. Willie from Uptown, when he lived around the corner from where he worked and played ball at both addresses (stickball on St. Nicholas Place, baseball on Eighth Avenue between 155th and 157th Streets). Willie of the West Coast after he was transferred on business. Willie who left his heart in New York and came back to find it well cared for in 1972. Willie who Said Goodbye to America two weeks before helping bid the Big Red Machine au revoir in the fall of 1973. Willie the living legend, in and out of uniform for decades since.<br \/>\nYes, there are many Willie Mayses. But when you get right down to it, there\u2019s only one Willie Mays.<br \/>\nThe Giants \u2014 currently of San Francisco, ancestrally of Manhattan \u2014 keep coming up with good excuses to give Willie Mays a ride back to his baseball hometown. They keep winning the World Series. Not every year, which would be gauche, but every other year. Then they take a few days out of their busy California schedule and visit New York with a trophy and an icon in tow. The trophy\u2019s a lovely keepsake, but it\u2019s somebody else\u2019s. When the Giants come around, I don\u2019t greet them in order to relish their spoils of victory.<br \/>\nI come to be near Willie Mays. Success hasn\u2019t spoiled that sensation.<br \/>\nTo offer a little background to those of you who haven\u2019t heard it before, I\u2019ll tell you that at the age of nine, when I was already deeply and eternally bound to the fortunes of our Metsies, I became fully aware that they were preceded as \u201cN.Y. (N.L.)\u201d by another outfit, one that even wore the same NY on their caps. This was 1972. I was in third grade and had begun to soak up the history of those larger-than-life New York Giants. There was an article in Baseball Digest that introduced me to John McGraw and Christy Mathewson. There was a biography in the East School library that profiled Mel Ott. Suddenly, there was a trade made by the New York Mets that netted them the greatest of New York Giants.<!--more--><\/p>\n<p>They\u2026we\u2026got Willie Mays.<br \/>\nCritical mass thus gave me two teams, the Mets in my time, the Giants for all time, or at least the portion of pre-Mets time they spent in New York, which spanned 1883 to 1957. They became my object of historical affection. The San Francisco aspect of their ongoing activities didn\u2019t really register with me. Those Giants, once they kindly sent Willie home where he belonged, were just another Met opponent whose games started inconveniently late. I had no strong opinion of them except that I thought it rather rude that they had absconded with Mays in the first place.<br \/>\nCredit where credit is due, though. The San Francisco Giants have become all about the make-good. In the 2010s, they win a World Series every other year and they make certain to share the spirit of those championships with their New York diehards. They honor two groups with which I\u2019ve been happily involved \u2014 the New York Baseball Giants Nostalgia Society and the New York Giants Preservation Society \u2014 for continuing to honor them. They organize a biennial breakfast and invite the membership and host a black-and-orange love-in that doesn\u2019t turn a person away just because he otherwise bleeds Mets blue.<br \/>\nThey\u2019re the three-time World Champion San Francisco Giants. They can afford to be gracious. Same for their Gotham-based fans. In New York Giant-loving circles (which is to say among Giants fans who live in New York and cheer for San Francisco), I\u2019m accepted for my heritage-oriented enthusiasm. I\u2019m welcome to take part in their festivities, given a peek into their folkways, offered the same crack at the same sumptuous buffet as they are.<br \/>\nI\u2019ll be rooting against those Giants when they come to Citi Field in June. In the icebox that is January, however, I can\u2019t think of an organization I like better.<\/p>\n<p>The San Francisco Giants bring me Willie Mays every two winters. They brought him to me in 2011 when, truth be told, he seemed a little out of it. They brought him to me in 2013 when he was far sharper and more engaged. They brought him to me on Saturday when I swear that if I had closed my eyes and hadn\u2019t known any better, I\u2019d have thought I was listening to the same Willie Mays from when he wore 24 in Queens.<br \/>\nIn 2015, Willie sounded A-Mays-ing. Every time the Giants win a World Series, he gets younger. This youth movement might help explain San Francisco\u2019s autumnal success. They brought their ageless wonder to this breakfast of champions and they brought Joe Panik, who appears to me all of 14. (Joe\u2019s actually\u2026wait for it\u202624.)<br \/>\nThe Giants didn\u2019t need to give us Joe Panik, but what the hell, the kid is from somewhere around here and why shouldn\u2019t he have the chance to visit with Willie Mays, too? He did just help his team win a World Series.<br \/>\nAll due respect to the second baseman whose quick thinking in the field turned Game Seven of the most recent World Series around, but the Giant nostalgists, preservationists and fans who filled their third hotel ballroom in five winters didn\u2019t come out in the slush to hear from Joe Panik. He was a swell complement, but Willie Mays was positively papal in his effect on the people. Hundreds rose as one when word filtered in from the hallway that Willie was about to enter. Willie didn\u2019t enter for more than five minutes, but nobody sat down.<br \/>\nYou don\u2019t sit down when Willie Mays might walk by.<br \/>\nIt was worth the wait. Willie was led in. Standing on the edge of his processional, I was going to try to get a very good picture with my phone. Instead I gave a very good ovation and got a series of blurry photos. That\u2019s all right. There\u2019s no shortage of published images of Willie Mays. To have one in your head of him passing right in front of you as you pay proper homage? That you can leave your phone in your pocket for.<br \/>\nLike I said, Willie did some version of this in 2011 and 2013. He\u2019s plenty loose by now. In 2015, he was ready from the first softball tossed his way.<br \/>\nHow did it feel to be back in New York?<br \/>\n\u201cI never left!\u201d Indeed, Willie Mays has maintained an apartment in Riverdale, but the way he squealed his answer and the understanding of how his backstory wound through the Polo Grounds (and Shea Stadium) made it an instant applause line.<br \/>\n\u201cPeople in New York, when they like you, they love you.\u201d More applause.<br \/>\nWhen Joe Panik was introduced, there was applause, too \u2014 and leading it, on his feet, was Mr. Mays. Willie, recurring youthful aura notwithstanding, is 83. He needs some assistance to get from the back to the front of a ballroom. Yet he didn\u2019t hesitate to stand and salute Panik. He also was plenty ready to discuss what a promising player he was sitting next to. As Willie likes to say (and he said it Saturday), he doesn\u2019t know why he refers to \u201cwe\u201d having won the World Series. \u201cI didn\u2019t do anything,\u201d he frankly admits. \u201cThey won.\u201d<br \/>\nIt struck me that when you hear the phrase \u201che\u2019s a good baseball man,\u201d we\u2019re conditioned to apply it to someone like Terry Collins. He didn\u2019t excel as a player but he worked hard and he learned things and he accumulated knowledge and he stayed in the game and, after a fashion, others in the industry looked at him and agreed, \u201cHe\u2019s a good baseball man.\u201d<br \/>\nWe don\u2019t apply that to someone on Willie Mays\u2019s level \u2014 which isn\u2019t a very populated level, I grant you. But when I listened to him digress on what Panik had done well last season and postseason, then heard him analyze the trajectory of the 2014 Giants and compare their confidence with his self-confessed bad case of rookie nerves in 1951, I realized that Willie Mays, aside from being the most spectacular of baseball players, is a very good baseball man.<br \/>\nI doubt you\u2019d find better.<br \/>\nWillie addressed a range of topics as wide as CF at the PG. He remembered Ernie Banks as \u201csomeone who never got mad\u2026and all of a sudden the ball would go over the fence.\u201d He reported that he and Monte Irvin, soon to turn 96, \u201ctalk all the time\u201d. He won a round of loving laughs when he confirmed that when Bobby Thomson hit his pennant-winning homer, he didn\u2019t realize right away what all the fuss was about (Willie was in the on-deck circle and still assumed he was up next). He wouldn\u2019t rank a next-best center fielder, but acknowledged \u201cJunior was pretty good\u201d. He rated as the loudest roar of his career the welcome home he received in the Polo Grounds in 1962 the first time the Giants headed east to play the Mets. He explained San Francisco\u2019s tentative embrace when he and his teammates moved there in \u201958: \u201cThey soon understood I could play baseball.\u201d<br \/>\nSomewhere along the way, Larry Baer, CEO of the Giants, joined the panel to hail not just Willie and Joe but the audience, a crowd that stayed true to their team, distance be damned. (Panik said something earnest about appreciating the proliferation of Giants fans at Citi Field, which served as another surefire applause line, though I assure you I kept my hands politely folded.) Baer thoroughly tipped his cap to the Giants\u2019 \u201croots\u201d in New York, though the mere existence of this January morning event testified to his club\u2019s sincerity.<br \/>\nThis whole thing was on the Giants: the space in a really lovely hotel; the food that far outpaced your average Holiday Inn Express; the trophy that I\u2019m told is awarded for winning a championship (how would I know?); the transcontinental goodwill; the pairing of the outfielder who made The Catch in New York in 1954 with the New York-born infielder who made The Flip in 2014. Nobody\u2019s charged anything. Nobody\u2019s sold anything. There are no merchandise tables, no \u201cGiants on the Road\u201d packages. Instead, there\u2019s stories and reflections and standing ovations coming and going. There are grateful remarks like \u201cthree World Series in five years, I still have to pinch myself,\u201d and reminiscences about having sat in Section 38 for Game One in \u201954, left-center, and watching Willie tracking Vic Wertz\u2019s ball all the way, and asides that Section 22 at the Polo Grounds was behind home plate and how you could remember Section 22 by number because, well, Don Mueller wore 22.<br \/>\nFor those on hand who lived the New York Giants, this was quite the gathering. For those who had the San Francisco Giants passed down to them as a family heirloom three time zones removed, it was an experience to be cherished. For me, who figures I wouldn\u2019t have my New York Mets without those New York Giants, it was a stolen moment in the sun.<br \/>\nIt snowed the night before. It\u2019s snowing all over again two days later. I\u2019ll steal every bit of sunshine I can.<br \/>\nMy particular heartfelt thanks to Bill Kent of the New York Baseball Giants Nostalgia Society and Gary Mintz of the New York Giants Preservation Society for engineering these three Saturday mornings I\u2019ve been fortunate enough to spend with Willie Mays, or three more than it ever occurred to me to dream possible.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>BY GREG PRINCE From NYGPS Member and Mets Blogger (FAITH &#038; FEAR IN FLUSHING) extraordinaire Greg Prince A GREAT REVIEW OF THE EVENT! Third Time\u2019s Another Charm Is there any better antidote to chilly days than Willie Mays? Is there &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/newyorkgiantspreservationsociety.com\/?p=1926\">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-1926","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\/1926","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=1926"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/newyorkgiantspreservationsociety.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1926\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1930,"href":"https:\/\/newyorkgiantspreservationsociety.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1926\/revisions\/1930"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/newyorkgiantspreservationsociety.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1926"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newyorkgiantspreservationsociety.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1926"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newyorkgiantspreservationsociety.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1926"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}