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Post by Slam_Bradley on Jun 18, 2024 20:26:06 GMT -5
R. I. P. Willie Mays, the Say Hey Kid. Clearly one of the most electrifying ball players ever.
On my phone, so I’ll leave it to someone else to post a link.
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Post by MRPs_Missives on Jun 18, 2024 20:27:43 GMT -5
R. I. P. Willie Mays, the Say Hey Kid. Clearly one of the most electrifying ball players ever. On my phone, so I’ll leave it to someone else to post a link. Just saw this. Here's the ESPN obit Willie Mays-M |
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Post by Prince Hal on Jun 18, 2024 20:54:22 GMT -5
R. I. P. Willie Mays, the Say Hey Kid. Clearly one of the most electrifying ball players ever. On my phone, so I’ll leave it to someone else to post a link. ![]()  I remember the spring day in 1966 that I opened a pack of cards I had just bought at Cohen’s Stationery and the first card in the pack was also the #1 card in that year’s series. And it was this guy who was smiling back at me. Man, did I love Willie Mays. Still do. |
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Confessor
CCF Mod Squad
Not Bucky O'Hare!
Posts: 10,202 
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Post by Confessor on Jun 18, 2024 21:07:03 GMT -5
Sad to hear this. I'm not a big sports fan and baseball means next to nothing over here in the UK, but I know who Willie Mays was. He's one of only three baseball players I can name, along with Babe Ruth and Joe DiMaggio. But they don't fascinate me like Mays does. His extraordinary abilities on the pitch and humble character off of it have interested me for years. I was only watching a Sky documentary about him two or three weeks ago. It's very sad to hear that one of the all-time greats is gone.  |
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Post by foxley on Jun 19, 2024 2:52:32 GMT -5
Sad to hear this. I'm not a big sports fan and baseball means next to nothing over here in the UK, but I know who Willie Mays was. He's one of only three baseball players I can name, along with Babe Ruth and Joe DiMaggio. But they don't fascinate me like Mays does. His extraordinary abilities on the pitch and humble character off of it have interested me for years. I was only watching a Sky documentary about him two or three weeks ago. It's very sad to hear that one of the all-time greats is gone. Unlike Confessor, I only know of Willie Mays from a reference in Peanuts where Charlie Brown blows a spelling bee by spelling 'maze' as 'mays' because he was thinking about Willie Mays. |
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Post by codystarbuck on Jun 19, 2024 11:59:56 GMT -5
Sad to hear this. I'm not a big sports fan and baseball means next to nothing over here in the UK, but I know who Willie Mays was. He's one of only three baseball players I can name, along with Babe Ruth and Joe DiMaggio. But they don't fascinate me like Mays does. His extraordinary abilities on the pitch and humble character off of it have interested me for years. I was only watching a Sky documentary about him two or three weeks ago. It's very sad to hear that one of the all-time greats is gone. Unlike Confessor , I only know of Willie Mays from a reference in Peanuts where Charlie Brown blows a spelling bee by spelling 'maze' as 'mays' because he was thinking about Willie Mays. Mays was pretty well done, by the time I was aware of anyone in baseball (and I am not a fan of the game); so, my main reference was the cartoon Willie Mays and the Say Hey Kid, from the first season of The ABC Saturday Superstar Movie, in 1972..... An angel helps Willie Mays win the National League Pennant, in exchange for taking care of an orphan girl, who is a handful. The show was a series f specials and pilots for cartoon series, with different animation companies providing the material Rankin/Bass did the Willie Mays cartoon (and several others). Hanna-Barbera and Filmation also provided cartoons. There was a Lost in Space cartoon (with only Jonathan Harris), with Alex Toth character models, the pilot for The Brady Kids cartoon, the pilots for Yogi's Ark and Lassie's Rescue Rangers, plus cartoons based on Nanny & the Professor, That Girl and Bewitched (well, Tabitha and Adam Stevens), as well as another Toth-designed cartoon, Oliver and the Artful Dodger, which took inspiration from Oliver Twist and blended elements of several Dickens works. There was also Popeye Meets The Man Who Hated Laughter, with a whole bunch of King Features Syndicate comic strip characters brought together, in an adventure with Popeye. The Willie Mays cartoon was about the sum total of my knowledge of Hays, for a bit. |
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Post by Rob Allen on Jun 19, 2024 13:05:22 GMT -5
I got seriously into baseball in 1965. That year, Willie Mays led the league with 52 home runs. At the end of the year he had hit 505 in his career. By contrast, Hank Aaron had hit 398 at that point. If you'd asked most baseball fans back then who was most likely to break Babe Ruth's record of 714, they would have confidently answered, "Willie Mays". But that was the peak; injuries and illness slowed him down after that. He hit 37 homers in 1966, then never reached 30 again. Aaron averaged almost 40 a year for the next eight years and got the record. If Willie hadn't been drafted to serve in the Army during the Korean War, missing two seasons, things would probably have ended differently.
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Post by Farrar on Jun 19, 2024 15:09:33 GMT -5
I can barely type this without tearing up, but here goes. Willie Mays joined the Mets in 1972, which was the time I had just started to get into baseball. I'd heard of his great career with the Giants of course, and my father had seen Mays when the Giants were based in NY...but for me, it was only when Mays joined the Mets that I really knew how special he was.
The Mets were facing the powerful Reds in the 1973 National League Championship playoff series. It was game 5, the series was tied so this was a do-or-die game. Since my friends and I were by now avid Mets fans, as soon as school ended (2:15pm) we took the 7 train out to Shea Stadium. When we arrived it was about halfway through the game and the guards let us in sans tickets. We roamed the stands looking for seats and a big old drunken guy motioned to me to come sit next to him, which I promptly did (my friends sat in the aisles).
It was the fifth inning and the score was tied 2-2. The Mets were up, and after a hit and a walk, the Mets now led 3-2 and had the bases loaded. Kranepool was up but the Reds switched their pitcher and so Yogi pinch hit for Krane--with Willie! It was thought this could very well be Willie's last at bat (he had announced his forthcoming retirement earlier that season). Willie got a hit, a Baltimore chop kind of hit that scored a run. Pandemonium--the place went wild, the big drunk guy hugged me in a bear hug that lifted me off the ground (nearly breaking my ribs in the process). Mays himself eventually scored too, to more thunderous applause. When the inning ended the Mets led 6-2. And at the top of the next inning when the Mets took the field and the Say Hey Kid trotted out to centerfield there was a standing ovation. A beautiful game, and for me a beautiful memory. (Oh and by the way the Mets won 7-2 and went on to the World Series.)
I'll never forget his achievements, his legacy, and the joy he brought me and countless others. Thank you and rest in peace Mr. Mays
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Post by Ricky Jackson on Jun 19, 2024 18:19:13 GMT -5
I just watched the famous game 2 of the 73 Series on YouTube a few weeks back. Of course not Mays' finest hour (he lost two balls in the sun and stumbled rounding second), but in extra innings he redeemed himself by delivering what would be the game winning hit, which also turned out to be the last hit of his career. He also provided an iconic image in the top of the 10th when a photographer captured Mays as he collapsed to his knees and pleaded with the umpire that he had blown a call at the plate (the umpire had, on replay the tag missed the runner by a mile)  RIP Say Hey Kid |
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Post by Slam_Bradley on Jun 20, 2024 13:09:46 GMT -5
R. I. P. Donald Sutherland. So good in so many movies including Kelly's Heroes, The Dirty Dozen, Invasion of the Body Snatchers and MASH. Here's hoping he's "...drinking wine, eating cheese and catching some rays, you know." :quality(70)/cloudfront-us-east-1.images.arcpublishing.com/archetype/GWLIFBDDI5CI3JIIFYTNVVAJBE.jpg) |
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Post by berkley on Jun 20, 2024 14:04:30 GMT -5
I just saw Klute for the first time a few months ago when it played at the movie theatre here. He was really good in that, as was co-star Jane Fonda.
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Post by Cei-U! on Jun 20, 2024 14:17:20 GMT -5
Aw, crap. Sutherland has been one of my faves ever since I first saw MASH at age 12. That was my first "grown-up" movie and it made an indelible impression on my prepubescent psyche. So long, Donald. Thanks for all the great performances.
Cei-U!
I summon the original Hawkeye Pierce!
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Post by codystarbuck on Jun 20, 2024 14:29:39 GMT -5
Sutherland was great in anything. Loved him as the professor, In Animal House, especially when he kind of loses it, in front of the class...
I think my favorite has to be Space Cowboys, just because it has him at an experienced age, with other experienced actors, playing professionals and having a ball....especially when he fakes the eye test, via memory of the letter sequence.
My other favorite is the Avengers episode, "The Superlative Seven," where he plays the villain.
Like many Canadian actors, Sutherland went to the UK, to study at the London Academy of Music and Dramatic Art (LAMDA), and worked in repertory theater, before landing small roles in British tv (hence, The Avengers) and films shot in the UK, like The Dirty Dozen and The Bedford Incident. In fact, a second appearance in The Saint helped land him The Dirty Dozen.
Still love when he poses as a general.....
His Hawkeye, in the film version of MASH was way closer to the book than Alan Alda's, right down to playing football, in college.
I was reading his obituary on the NPR site. He and Jane Fonda (who were in a relationship) did a traveling road show, as an anti-war counter to Bob Hope's USO tours, playing to military crowds, which was the subject of a documentary, FTA, in 1972.
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Post by MRPs_Missives on Jun 20, 2024 15:18:12 GMT -5
I'm seeing several people mentioning comic writer Peter B. Gillis has passed. He was 71 years old. I am most familiar with his work on Micronauts nd Doctor Strange, but he had a wide and varied comic output.
-M
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Post by commond on Jun 20, 2024 16:07:18 GMT -5
I'm seeing several people mentioning comic writer Peter B. Gillis has passed. He was 71 years old. I am most familiar with his work on Micronauts nd Doctor Strange, but he had a wide and varied comic output. -M That's a shame. I've been really getting into his work lately. |
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