One Kid's Magic Moment with the "Say Hey Kid"

By Brian Donlon

Growing up in Queens, N.Y. the battlelines of baseball were clearly drawn from birth.

You either lived and died by the exploits of the Bronx Bombers, the legendary New York Yankees, or were wowed by the upstart New York Mets.

There was no “Gee, I like both.” And woe to the schoolyard pal who dared to utter “I like so-and-so” from the other team. Not allowed. Not ever.

That changed on May 11th, 1972. That is the day the San Francisco Giants traded one of the greatest players in the game, Willie Mays to the hometown Mets for – get this -- $50,000 and a pitcher named Charlie Williams. The long-forgotten Williams would win 23 games and lose 22 in six seasons for the Giants. Willie Mays in turn brought magic back to New York baseball for a few shining moments.

The Yankees were in transition in 1972. They were a team barely breaking even at the gate and in the standings. The Bronx Bombers were three years past seeing their own legendary player, Mickey Mantle retire. "I can't hit anymore," the then 37-year-old Mantle said in announcing he was hanging up his cleats.

But even the most loyal Yankee fan had to acknowledge the Mets-Giants trade brought baseball royalty to Flushing, N.Y., and Shea Stadium home of the Mets.

The Mets, barely a 10-year-old National League franchise, captured the hearts of the nation with its shocking 1969 World Series win. But the Mets too had fallen into playing .500 baseball and right before the 1972 season started the team saw its beloved manager, Gil Hodges, die of a heart attack.

Ironically, it was Yankees' legend Yogi Berra who was tapped to take over as skipper of the Mets. The lines of loyalty being further blurred for New York baseball fans. Then, just weeks after the season began came word that the “Say Hey Kid” was a Met.

At 41 years old, Mays was approaching the same territory that faced Mantle. But this was a homecoming. Mays was the pride of New York for seven years in the 1950s when he patrolled center field at the old Polo Grounds, with the then New York Giants. After the Giants left for the San Francisco Bay, fans would flock to ?Shea Stadium, hard off Flushing Bay, when Mays and the Giants would return to the Big Apple to play the Mets.

Initially, Mays did not want to “come home” and play for the Mets, but the then owner, Joan Payson, made him an offer he could not refuse. Willie played when he wanted to, which was important as he struggled with a nagging injury to his left knee.

On May 14th, wearing familiar number 24, Willie Mays took the field at first base for the Mets. Everyone in the city’s five boroughs – Yankee fans and Mets fans – watched or listened to the game. This was much to the chagrin of every mother in the city who was trying to celebrate Mother’s Day.

But Willie gave moms and baseball fans a gift to remember. In his Mets’ debut in the fifth inning, Mays blasted a home run to left field putting the Mets ahead to ultimately win the game.

Talk about magic moments.

Mays as a Met softened the baseball debates in schoolyards across the city. But there were a few holdouts. I remember my neighbor, a kid who called himself "Zappo" calling Willie a “stiff.” This came when the season concluded and the 24-time all-star hit only .238 with 14 home runs and 44 RBIs in 135 games.

When 1973, rolled around, New York baseball was on the verge of being turned and tossed upside down and round again. Some shipbuilder from Cleveland who went by the name of George Steinbrenner purchased the New York Yankees.

Steinbrenner was then an unknown. Bombast was not yet his trademark. Yankee fans from the Bronx to Staten Island wondered what this meant for the team. Of course, we would later find out. It meant chaos -- and championships.

But we were still years away and Willie Mays offered comfort and certainty to fans young and old. New York was a troubled city at the time. Graffiti, crime, and decay were in full bloom. In a couple of years, the New York Daily News, the former king of the tabloids in the Big Apple, would famously tell the world just how bad things were with a front page message from then-President Ford.

Willie Mays in a Mets uniform – even to Yankee fans – represented the best of baseball. Watching Willie even as he fought Father Time was just a living example of the speech James Early Jones would give two decades later in “Field of Dreams.”

“They'll walk out to the bleachers and sit in shirtsleeves on a perfect afternoon. They'll find they have reserved seats somewhere along one of the baselines, where they sat when they were children and cheered their heroes. And they'll watch the game, and it'll be as if they'd dipped themselves in magic waters. The memories will be so thick, they'll have to brush them away from their faces.”

That is what it was like watching the Say Hey Kid.

I saw it firsthand in the second game of the 1973 World Series. My dad had corralled two tickets for the Mets -- who shocked the baseball world again – by winning the National League pennant. Their foes: the swashbuckling, home run-hitting Oakland A’s. They were led by one of Willie’s long ball heirs, Reggie Jackson, who would become a New York baseball icon several years later.

Back when the Dodgers and Giants both played in New York, my Dad had seen Willie play several times at the old Brooklyn ballpark, Ebbets Field. So he decided to give the two tickets to my brother and me along with four subway tokens and sent us on our way to the other side of Queens to watch Willie play in the World Series.

He started the first two games in Oakland, where the Mets split the first two games. Willie did not play particularly well in his return to the Bay Area. He famously lost a ball in the sun, but al;so knocked in some key runs. Still, the lasting image was from the second game of the series with Willie on his knees pleading with an umpire to change his call.

Willie was not arguing a call made against him. Teammate Bud Harrelson was thrown out trying to score on a fly ball. Mays was on deck and rushed to the plate to guide Harrelson as the throw came in. Willie disagreed with the call, but foggy memories all these years later think it was Willie who was thrown out continuing his bad luck in his final World Series.

None of that dampened the excitement of going to my first World Series with the bonus of watching Willie Mays.

Zappo and all my other Yankee friends could not understand how and why my brother and I could go to Shea Stadium and root for the Mets. It was one thing to watch the games on WOR-TV, Channel 9, it was something entirely different to “root” in person for a team other than the Yankees. Willie Mays or no Willie Mays.

Dad said simply, “They’re jealous, go and enjoy.”

So, off we went. The Shea Stadium crowd was pulsating. Could the Mets pull off another World Series miracle? What will Willie do today?

My brother and I pulled into our seats about 30 rows behind the third base dugout. Prime tickets, that were a long fly ball away from the $1.50 upper deck grandstand seats we were used to sitting in with our gang of “Pinstripe Pals” at Yankee Stadium.

The starting line-ups were announced. Rusty Staub was announced as the right fielder. In a matter of seconds, John Milner was revealed to be the Mets' first baseman.

My brother turned and said, “Maybe Willie is back in centerfield.”

Those hopes were dashed when the public address announcer blared, “Playing centerfield number 25, Don Hahn.”

Wait, what?

Where’s number 24? We didn’t come here to see number 25, we came to see 24!

You could feel the exasperation filter through the crowd. Yes, Willie was struggling. But this was the World Series, baseball’s biggest stage, and its most legendary actor was on the sidelines.

Secretly, nearly everyone in the stadium was hoping for a return to almost 20 years before when Willie made that legendary over-the-shoulder catch against the Cleveland Indians in the 1954 World Series.

The Mets’ all-star right-hander Tom Seaver and the ace of the A’s, Jim "Catfish" Hunter (another soon-to-be New York baseball legend) went head-to-head in a master class of pitching.

With the score tied at 2, the hope of seeing Willie Mays play was dwindling. But then in the top of the 10th inning, Mets manager Yogi Berra sent up Willie to pinch hit for relief pitcher Tug McGraw.

The crowd at Shea erupted.

I sprang to my feet. I chanted “Will-ee, Will—ee” while others joined in. It was a choir singing to the baseball gods.

Mets' shortstop Bud Harrellson had singled with two outs before Willie came to the plate. Harrelson stood 90 feet away from the Say Hey Kid on first base. Everyone was thinking, hoping, and praying for a game-winning home run. But an extra-base hit of any kind off Willie's bat would have likely scored the speedy Harrelson

One more sweet swing, that was all I wanted. My Yankee roots had been cut away. I wanted... no I needed Willie to win the game. I wished for the Mets to pull victory from the long odds against them. I craved a heavy dose of baseball magic.

Willie's at-bat was quick. He swung on the first pitch, hitting a ground ball deep into the hole at shortstop. Oakland's Bert Campaneris pulled it in with his glove, pivoted, and threw out Harrelson on a force out at second base. The inning was over and so was Willie’s career. He would not play another Major League Baseball game again.

The Mets would lose the game 3-2 in the 11th inning and eventually lose the Series. Still, it did not matter to me or my brother. We had a chance to see one of the greatest ever to grace a baseball diamond play in a World Series. All these years later I remember how delightful it was...the feeling of the possible when he came to bat, the chance to share a dream with thousands of strangers -- and my brother -- of what could be.

Everyone should experience that joy of childhood -- especially as we grow older. It is not attending a big sports event with a big star. Rather it is a chance to experience that simplicity of life that such a moment of Willie's last at bat represented.

Life goes by fast. It seemed that way for Willie Mays, even after 93 years on this earth. People will remember his greatness on and off the field. I will long have in my memory how he made millions of New Yorkers come together, put their baseball divisions aside, and believe in something. ??

As James Earl Jones so memorably articulated the words of W.P. Kinsella’s book and Philip Alden Robinson’s screenplay:

"they'll watch the game, and it'll be as if they'd dipped themselves in magic waters. The memories will be so thick, they'll have to brush them away from their faces.”

Willie Mays put me in those magic waters and all these years later I am still brushing away the memories.

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