MLB WORLD SERIES: GIANTS v ANGELS

October 22, 2002

Willie Mays

WILLIE MAYS: First of all, looks like, what I see is the ballparks are shorter. The ballparks that we played in were bigger. I thought they began to bring the fences in. I thought it was a little big for us to hit consistently a lot of home runs. At least I hit a lot of triples. But you can't really get into what we did in the '60s compared to what they're doing now. Looks like the ball is a little harder. That means the ball is tighter. The pitchers sometimes don't seem to go no more than five or six innings, where we had pitchers, when I played, that could go nine innings. It was a little tough. You can't take anything away from the guys that are playing today. You have to hit the ball regardless of what era you play in. I don't see us hitting any more home runs than the guys are hitting today. Of course, if we had maybe a shorter fence, I might have hit maybe another 50 home runs, because, take San Diego for instance, I hit that wall just about every time I played there. Atlanta, they brought their fence in. Chicago stayed the same, which was a good ballpark for us. Cincinnati moved around a little bit. They brought the fence in. So, everything has changed in the latter years, so I don't know. Probably been another 50, I don't know.

WILLIE MAYS: I think just going to a rally today, it tells me that they were looking for something to do and they were waiting for something like this to happen. Now, if we can win, you really will see something, because I think they remember '62, they remember the time that Mac hit the ball to Richardson on second base. I think it's just something that I think they're waiting for. The city is the one that's going to profit by everything. The hotels should be full, the ballpark should be filled up, airports and things like that. So, everybody's going to profit by us winning the World Series. I know, for one, I'm very happy about it because I think Barry is the type of kid, he's 37, 38 now. He may not have another shot at it until next time, but I think he'd like it right now.

WILLIE MAYS: I think it's enjoyable because I was with these guys for the last three or four years. To see their faces and see how happy they are to get into a series and get to the point where you can tell that they never had this opportunity to be in this type of stuff, I think it's just rewarding to see how happy they can be. To me, that makes me happy because now, when I come into the clubhouse, you don't see a sad guy in the clubhouse. You see everybody laughing and having fun.

WILLIE MAYS: I don't know. I never hit a home run here (laughter). I don't know. You can't do that, I don't think. You can't take one ballpark and say, "Well... One ball is harder than the other." I have heard guys say this ballpark is tough to hit home runs in. The way I look at it, it seems like it's easy to me; I don't know. I've never been able to hit a ball in this ballpark. I throw one around. So, I never really had a big problem at Candlestick, I hit a lot of balls to right-center. Whatever ball I hit, I kept it low. I really didn't have a problem with that ballpark. Twenty on the road, maybe 20 at home. I used to average around 20, 25 on each side, road and home.

WILLIE MAYS: Because guys, maybe they don't write about it. I don't know. Every time that's come up, it's always a guy that seems to be an enemy. They had what they call the "All Century Team," and I guess three or four years ago, they picked Babe to be number one. I really don't know. I don't really worry about that too much. I know that when I played, I could do anything on the ball field and I was happy to do all that kind of stuff. I was happy about it. But now, other people, in hindsight, maybe they didn't feel that way. I can't change that. I can only go by what I feel. If they don't like the way I play, I can't change that either. So, I did everything. If it wasn't good enough for the people, then, hey, I got to move on. I can't stop.

WILLIE MAYS: Let's go to Barry first. I don't work with Barry on his offense because I think he's a tremendous player right now. He doesn't need me. The only thing Barry needs right now is tuning up. Every now and then he'll get excited about an at-bat, I would go to him, we'd talk. Once he understood what I'm talking about, I'll leave him. I don't think I should harp on it. Even on the field, if I feel that he made a bad play, I go to him, we talk, and he'll correct it. He's very smart in correcting things that we talk about. Bobby, when he came up, Bobby was a very fast runner. I think he had just as much power as Barry has. But he wasn't consistent, like Barry right now. So, I think the two players are similar in the running department, maybe the throwing department, but I don't think he's consistent in the home run department.

WILLIE MAYS: I think the mother gave me that. The mother wanted me to be the godfather. I don't think Bobby said anything to me about that. Bobby was always in my locker when I played, he was the type of guy that would eat a lot of candy, chew a lot of gum. I had it in my locker all the time. We would go on the field, actually he was around me more than the two were. Maybe that rubbed off on him a little bit.

WILLIE MAYS: My favorite World Series moments? I would have to pick 1954 because we were underdogs in 1954 when, I guess, we were playing Cleveland. Cleveland had three 20 game winners, one 19, two 15, so to me, that was my special moment because we won four games. Out of that, I didn't have time to hit. I only got four hits. I got 4-for-12 or 15, I don't know. I made a lot of walks, a great catch in the World Series. I would have to pick that particular World Series for my best.

WILLIE MAYS: I don't think Barry has many slumps in the last three or four years. He may have a delay -- we call it "delay," where he may go 0-10 or 0-7, something like that. To me, that's called a mini slump, when you're consistent doing things. I will go to a couple guys if I feel they want help, but I don't like to go to guys when I feel I'm going to be rejected. I try and stay away from them if they feel that, "Hey, I'm not doing the right thing for them." Any ballplayer, if he ever came to me and would want me to help him, I would be there for this particular ballplayer, regardless of who he may be. But it's fortunate that I talk to Barry more and he listens a little bit better than others, I don't know. Maybe they want help, and maybe they don't want to ask. But I'm lucky enough to understand that I can do a lot of things, and I can relate to a lot of things that people do, and I can tell them exactly what they're doing wrong, whether they want to do it or whether they want to hear it or not.

WILLIE MAYS: I thought we just answered that, didn't we?

WILLIE MAYS: I don't know. It's been so many things that I have in my life that I can pick. Even when I signed my first contract in 1950, that was a great moment for me because I was able to get out of Birmingham, my hometown, and go into baseball. I was able to take care of my family. I was able to make sure that I finished high school with a little education. I was really thrilled that I could get into Major League Baseball at the time that I did. So, there's so many thrills that I have. Even when I was playing in the Negro League where a lot of guys would help me, and they would say to me, "You're going to the majors, you're going to be "the" guy that we're going to send to the majors." If I can reflect back, when Jackie came in 1947 and Larry Doby came a couple months after that, I thought I had a chance to go to the majors. All these things reflect in my mind, because of such loud memories in my mind about different things, about how I would try and react when I got to the majors. When I did get to the majors, we had a lot of problems then because we couldn't stay in hotels with the guys. I wasn't going to let that bother me. So, there's a lot of memories in my mind, over the 22 years that I played.

WILLIE MAYS: I would say my father was the best guy that I could turn to. He was a leftfielder playing ball, and on a steel-mill team. He was a guy that would watch me all the time and tell me. When I was about, oh, 10, I knew about what to do in baseball. I knew about the cutoff man, I knew how to play first, second, third, catch and everything. I knew all those things when I was about 10 or 12. So, my father was a guy that I went to, we would sit down and talk. Once I learned all the things he was telling me, he says, "One thing is very important: Defense is your key. Not offense." You hear a lot of guys, "I want to hit a lot of home runs." You have to play good defense in order to hit a lot of home runs. He instilled that in my mind, many times. If you have ever seen me play, defense, to me, was my best game. I played very good defense in the outfield. I knew that I could make maybe five or six errors a year and that was it. So, I just had a good time. My father was my key man.

WILLIE MAYS: 1954, I was very cocky. When I say that, everything went in the air, I thought I could catch. I was very aware of what was going on. When the ball was hit off -- Don Little was the pitcher. When the ball was hit, as the ball is coming over the infield, I'm saying to myself, "Two men are on," I'm talking to myself as I'm running. I know it's hard to believe that I could do all this in one sequence. As the ball is coming over the infield, I'm saying to myself, "I got to get this ball back into the infield." In my mind, I never thought I would miss the ball. I didn't think that at all. I said to myself, "This ball has got to get back to the infield." And if you ever see a play, look at the way I catch the ball, it's like a wide receiver catching a pass going down the sideline, which is over the left shoulder, on the right side. Usually, a wide receiver catches a ball on the ride side, going down the left side. So, I had learned all that in high school, to do all these things, so when I'm catching the ball, I said to myself, "I got to get it back." If you look again, there wasn't even a cutoff man out there. I think I threw the ball back into second base on a fly. So, when people say to me, "Do you think you're going to catch the ball?" Yes, I thought I was going to catch it. But the key to me was getting it back into the infield.

WILLIE MAYS: I think that's up to Dusty. It's not up to me. If I had my choice, I would definitely bring him back because if you look at the guys on the team, they respect Dusty, they know what their job is, they know what their role is. Even the guys that are not playing seem to understand their role. I think Dusty is the type of guy, he'll tell you what's on his mind. He can relate to the guys without any problems. Let's take a kid like Shawon Dunston. Shawon is a professional player. He's been on the bench for quite a while, but he doesn't complain. I think that's because of Dusty, because of myself. We talk to him, we tell him his role, we tell him that, "This is what you have to do." He understands that and he wants to play, very badly. So, I think when you say, "Is Dusty going to be back," I don't know, because that's up to the management. I have no control over that. But I hope he will, because it would be very difficult for me to try and break in a new manager and talk to him the way I do about the players and try and relate to him the way I do. So hopefully he'll come back.

WILLIE MAYS: Well, that's one of the plays that I had that I thought was better than the catch. The reason, I've tried to relate this to people that don't understand what you're saying, centerfielder, at that time, Leo said to me -- actually, we had a meeting the day before. Leo said, "Any ball that goes up in the air, Willie has to catch." If anybody was around in those days, the ball was on the rightfield line. Actually, it wasn't a fair ball. I caught the ball, made a complete turn, and guys said, "What happened to the rightfielder?" Well, again, Leo had a meeting, and in his meeting, he says, "Don Mueller, Dusty Rhodes, when the ball goes up, Willie's got to catch this ball." Now, when Furillo hit the ball, I think Furillo hit the ball, the ball went up. Don Mueller didn't move. I had to go full speed on the rightfield line, catch the ball, make a complete turn, throw a very, very fast runner out. The way I did it, Watner was a cutoff man. I hit his letter, without even hitting the ground, because I knew I had to get the ball in very quickly. Don't ask me how I did it because I don't know. It's called a reaction play. I did it very quickly. I don't know if I could do it again, but I think I could. It's like a basketball player doing a 360, so I think I could. But that's the kind of play I think he's talking about.

WILLIE MAYS: First of all, I didn't want to see a strike come in. I felt that if a strike came in and we didn't play the World Series, I think we would have had problems. If we didn't have the playoffs the way we had it. If you look back, the playoffs have been very good, the World Series is having two teams that weren't supposed to get in there, that's good. I think it's very, very good that the American people can say to themselves, "We now still have baseball. We still have baseball to go to a game and bring my kid." Every day, I see kids, not from San Francisco, from different places, families are coming. So when you say, "How good it is for baseball," very good. Very good. Because now, we can go to the next year. I say if they have a problem with baseball, contracts or whatever, do it in the wintertime. Make sure that baseball is going on. People have been telling me, "Well, basketball and football is passing you." I don't think so. I think baseball is our number one sport. It's clean. We may have some faults every now and then, but it's a clean sport, a sport that you can play without having to worry about size or doing anything. You just can have a good time in baseball. It's very clean.

WILLIE MAYS: I'm not that good (laughter). I wish I were. I wish I could say the Giants would win, because looks like the other night, when we got 9-7, I thought we were going to win. I thought that was over right away. This game, it's a very strange game. I've seen us, when we were down five runs, people said, "Oh, it's over." We come back and we score four runs, we tie it up. Now we go ahead 9-7, I said right away, "We're gonna win." This game is very strange. I wish I could say we could win. I wish I could say to the San Francisco people, "We have a World Series here." Now we have one in New York, one in San Francisco. I would love to say that. But I don't know, man. I wish we could end it right here. I don't want to end it down there. End it right here where we can really have some fun.

WILLIE MAYS: Well, that's a really good question. I never really gave it any thought, about how I wanted to be remembered. Because you don't have that opportunity. I think people, in this day, or in this time, they remember what they want to remember. I think sometimes when you try and put a cap on how people remember you, I think it's wrong. I don't know how people are going to remember me. All I know is I played 22 good years in baseball, I had a lot of fun. I had a lot of friends in baseball, a lot of enemies in baseball. I enjoyed this game and I still enjoy this game. I still get nervous. The other day, when I was in Vegas, I'm saying to myself in the ninth inning, the guy says, "Do you want to see the ninth inning?" I said, "No, turn it off right away." It's so nerve-wracking to me to see all this happening and you ask me a question, "How do you want to be remembered?" I don't know. I have no idea, because all kids -- well, let's put it this way, the fathers, the mothers are telling their kids, "I saw him play," they never saw me play. But hopefully, they can say, "Well, there goes the best baseball player in the world." Hopefully. The way the gentleman said before, "Since you haven't had that recognition, well, what's going to happen?" That's why I say I don't know. I wish I could tell you, because I honestly believe I did everything in baseball that a baseball player can do, and I did it with love.