Effectively Wild: A FanGraphs Baseball Podcast - Effectively Wild Episode 1927: The Living Legend of Willie Mays

Episode Date: November 8, 2022

Ben Lindbergh and Meg Rowley share their impressions of HBO’s new feature-length documentary about Willie Mays, Say Hey, Willie Mays!, and reflect on Mays’s career, then (29:23) talk to director Nelson George about the making of the movie, what didn’t make the movie, his interactions with Mays and other legends, and much more, followed (1:04:59) […]

A mile away in the polar grass, he pulls it in and spins himself around. Sometimes I dream of Willie Mace, and tell him I was there. Sometimes I dream of Willie Mace And the wind dies down And the sun comes up And the scoreboard works And the ball lifts And he's there Hello and welcome to episode 1927 of Effectively Wild, a Fangraphs baseball podcast brought to you by our Patreon supporters.

I'm Meg Rowley of Fangraphs and I'm joined as ever by Ben Lindberg of The Ringer. Ben, how are you? Did I say it differently than I normally do? I'm joined as ever. Slightly different. As ever is different than as always. Well, here you are as ever, as always. Hey, Ben, how are you? Hi. That could be our off-season intro, I guess. Switching things up. Got a new format here. here. Well, I am relieved that we no longer have to worry about whether what we're going to talk about will game, and there's been another game, will anyone even care about our thoughts about that previous game? The offseason, it's a little looser. We can go at our own pace. Obviously, there's still baseball news, hopefully much more baseball news than there was last year. But still, it's a little more leisurely. And we can just sort of explore the studio space here. So I like Effectively Wild in the off-season, probably my favorite time to do it. Well, and you can appreciate it for what

it is when you're not terrified that the entire sport is going to cease to exist, or at least your website that covers it. So yeah, I like off-season mode. I think I'm down to half a functional brain cell at this point, but I have tried to muster all of its energy for our pod today because I like chatting with you about baseball so much, Ben. Likewise. And I'm glad you're not completely running on empty yet. And you're going to get a little break later in the week from podcasting, at least going to maybe take a little episode off. Yeah. And not the podcast as a whole, but you personally, you can recharge. You can be back next week with perhaps multiple brain cells.

So that would be good. Wants to rub together, in fact. Not that I have noticed any deficiency in the brain cell department, just saying. But we are giving over our episode today to, I guess, a topical timely hook. I just got done saying that we're not feeling any pressure to do things in any particular timeline anymore. But we sort of are today because we're talking about a new documentary that is airing on HBO the day that we are publishing this episode, Tuesday.

I don't know when people are listening, but Tuesday, November 8th. But, of course, what is linear programming anymore and time slots? People can go watch this thing whenever they find it and whenever they hear this episode. It'll be on HBO Max, hopefully in perpetuity, although some things do tend to disappear mysteriously from that service from time to time. But this is a new exciting documentary produced by HBO about Willie Mays. It's called Say Hey, Willie Mays, appropriately enough. Willie Mays. It's called Say Hey Willie Mays, appropriately enough. And so we are saying hey to the director of Say Hey Willie Mays, the esteemed Nelson George. A little later, we had a

nice in-depth conversation with him. So much of our conversation about this documentary will be with the man who made it. But we wanted to do just a little banter beforehand, just some impressions of this documentary. I should say it's at 9 p.m. Again, even more irrelevant that I'm naming a particular time that it airs for those of you who open up your apps or whatever or still have cable. Some people still have cable. That is when you can watch it, but you can watch it forever. And we liked it, I think. Otherwise, we would not be doing an episode it forever. And we liked it, I think. Otherwise, we would not be

doing an episode about it. So we recommend it. We enjoyed it. It's sort of a holistic look at the life of Willie Mays and to some extent, the times of Willie Mays as well, just tracing him back to his childhood and to his early baseball career and short time in the Negro Leagues and then going to the Giants and then his whole historic heroic career, as well as his off the field life and some of the challenges and discrimination he faced and how he responded to those things and how it was different from some other contemporary figures when it came to his commentary or lack thereof on civil rights. And everyone is in this documentary. Foremost, Willie Mays is in it. So kind of buried the lead there. Willie Mays, 91 years young, he sat for this thing. He seems to have been in good humor and he's fun to listen to.

So he's the big draw here. listen to. So he's the big draw here, but he impressed upon his friends and colleagues and former teammates and admirers to talk to Nelson for this movie. And so it's sort of an all-access pass and just some other fellow incredible legends, many Hall of Famers, the late Vin Scully, sort of bittersweet to see him here, but glad he got recorded one more time for this documentary. So really just a murderer's row of talking heads and more than just the heads, also parts of their body below the heads, but just really like great people to hear from about every aspect of William Hayes' life and career. Yeah. I think that we talk about this a little bit in our interview, but like there's just been it feels like we've had a host of former players pass lately. And this like sad thing where they have been, you know, not that it sounds like I'm saying like no one has ever appreciated Willie Mays, which is obviously a ridiculous thing to say.

I think that being able to hear from these guys and engage with them while they're still alive and to have it feel almost like a conversation rather than, you know, a eulogy is really exciting and wonderful and something that we should kind of treasure because, you know, coming to the end of its life and the end of their individual lives. So I thought it was really wonderful to get to hear from him directly and to get to hear from so many people around him, who, you know, like any of the players, former players they talked to could be the subject of their own documentary. You know, they were all, you know, sort of interesting enough and had, you know, superlative enough careers and interesting enough lives that, you know, I could have heard a lot more from a lot of, then on the extremely short list, I forget exactly what the phrasing was, but there's something like earlier in the documentary where someone like hedges too much or couches too much when it comes to like, is he the greatest or one of the very greatest and is like arguably or something. And I was like, no, he just, he is, he just very clearly is. And the numbers are incredible, but also the aesthetics of how he played, which is something that when Henry Aaron passed, like we talked about how he is incredible and also has just about as strong a case as the best player ever, but was not sort of eye popping, eye catching in the same sort of way. You know, people will praise his consistency and how just steady he was without talking so much about the tools and just the all-around talent where Maze kind of had him beat in

some of those respects and was just sort of more explosive, more exciting, I guess, at least in some aspects of the game or for some portions of his career. So that's the thing that kind of comes through when you hear people talk, but also when you see some of the old footage. It doesn't look like really old footage in the way that it looks old sometimes when you see other footage from that time. And it's like, this is the dark ages. It's like with Willie Mays, he kind of looks like he could just step on the field and be a player now and has very distinctive mannerisms. And you can just sort of see why and how he was so charismatic and compelling to people. And I think that's something that comes through for me is just like how special it was to be a special baseball player in this period in the United States

where baseball sort of reigned supreme and had less competition sporting-wise and also just other entertainment options. And so when you were the biggest star in baseball, you were one of the biggest stars in the country, right? Yeah. I mean, you were a super celebrity and it really mattered what you said and did. People wrote songs about you. And, you know, like baseball players today, even if they're spectacular like Shohei Otani or so many of the other young, compelling, charismatic players we talk about all the time here, they don't break through in the same way, in the same sort of mainstream monoculture sense where there are all these clips of Mays appearing on various sitcoms and popular shows of the day and Ed Sullivan

and all these things. And you don't see that as much today where he was just a household name and everyone knew who he was and he seemed comfortable on camera. And you're just like a megastar in a way that you're not so much now if you're a baseball player. And so I guess that is why Mays and Mantle and other players from that period still loom so large on the Donna Reed show, you know, there's the presence he had in the culture. But I think the other thing about the footage that was used in this documentary that made it feel that, that made the proximity of that era to this one feel more sort of real and poignant than you sometimes get is like how much of that footage is in color.

You know, like I just, I think that we end up with this false sense of distance from historical events when we're viewing film in black and white it's like no like that was that wasn't that long ago in the grand scheme of things which i think when you're dealing with someone like maze and and that era of athlete and trying to understand the progression that they had, not only in terms of their place in the culture, but also our expectation of athletes and, you know, sort of

how they were interacting with broader social issues at the time. Like, it's easy to want it to feel like far away and over there. And it is in some important ways ways but in a lot of important ways it really isn't like it just wasn't that long ago right so i think that you know having to think about that at the same time that you're saying like well of course people weren't actually living in black and white it wasn't the olden times they didn't live in black and white back then either but it's easy to feel that way right because you have this remove and it's amazing the difference is just seeing that stuff in literal color can can make to being like, oh, yeah, that wasn't even all that long ago.

Some of that stuff is, some of those parts of San Francisco are still recognizable today. So anyway, I was just thinking about that. I think the other piece of this that I really enjoyed, and I don't mean this in like a stick to sports kind of way, because obviously like where he sat in the culture and sort of how the conversations he was having with other black athletes at the time is a really important piece of his legacy in this documentary and also it's just really delightful to get to

spend time watching willie mays play baseball you know that's one of the things that i'm always struck by when we have these documentaries especially for people our age where like we don't have any contemporaneous memory of him playing we weren't alive when he was an active player right so it's just really a delight to like get to watch him play baseball and to appreciate like how um again this is not a revelatory thought that willie mays was really good at baseball it's like well yeah meg thanks for that but it's different when you get to see it and you get to watch him you know in the act of actually playing baseball and then and this is another thing we talked about in the interview just to appreciate like oh he could have walked into a clubhouse today if he suddenly time traveled and be like yeah that's a baseball player like he would fit in our understanding not only in terms

of like what his swing looked like but like what he looked like as a as an athlete like he's just spectacular so it was it was really a treat yeah you always have to play that game like how would so and so do today and then you always have to sort of discuss the parameters of what you're actually discussing what are we talking about a time travel scenario where he's just plopped down in the big leagues today and overcomes the terror of like modern technology enough to play baseball? Or are we talking about like born and raised today and trained today

and sort of starting from scratch in this environment? And either way with Willie Mays, like even if it were the time travel scenario, I wouldn't really have any doubts. I mean, granted, like it's not like he played as long ago as Babe Ruth or something, but still, just given his game and his build and his athleticism and all of those things, the caliber of competition is greater today. And so perhaps he would not dominate the league to the same extent he did or for as long as he did. But I have no doubts that he would

more than hold his own if he were just to suddenly suit up now as the younger Willie Mays. So yeah, and what you were saying about this not really being all that long ago, obviously very relevant because so much of this is about the racism he encountered, which manifests in various ways. And of course, we talk about the beginning of his major league career here, where just as a Yeah. the Giants. And then when he goes out to San Francisco and he's unable to buy a house in the neighborhood where he wants to live and has to go through all sorts of things to just live there and having bottles thrown through his door and window and all of those things. And then just the things that he heard from fans as he was traveling around. And he doesn't talk about those things really so explicitly in the documentary,

the current Willie Mays. And that's something that Nelson talks about, like he was just reticent on certain subjects. But there is archival footage of him talking in more explicit terms decades ago about those things that he heard and encountered. So there isn't really any doubt about it, even though he doesn't explicitly revisit it here. It seems like there are certain things he was more interested in talking about than others and dwelling on than others. But it's very clear,

both from those old sources and from the sources who were interviewed about that time, everything that he had to go through. And then there's a lot of focus on how he handled that, at least publicly, which was criticized at the time. And it's interesting to hear his response to that. And again, that was something that he didn't really want to discuss so explicitly. So I guess you could say that it would have been nice if he'd opened up more about that as a 91-year-old and told us how he feels about it now but who says he has to revisit that time you know all these decades later again not so long ago it's someone who's still alive and experienced all those things but if he wants to to talk more about baseball and his teammates and his memories and all of that then who could blame him yeah and i

i think that the documentary does a really good job of grappling with that, honestly. You know, I don't think that Nelson or many of the people he interviewed shied away from really trying to dig in on the complicated nature of that part of his life, you know? So I just thought it was very well done. It was nice to, it's always nice when we have a new a new baseball doc you know yeah yeah and like a big one like a prestige hbo spotlights on it lots of sources and and a creator who has great credentials and was well equipped to do this project yeah and i was gonna say along those lines of the documentary not really shying away from things, and we talked a little, have final cut or a lot of say over what's in there.

And so you never really know, like, is this journalism? Like, what is the editorial control here? Are we getting a rosy picture? Is this just what the subject wants to be presented to the public? And that was not the case here. Nelson told us that Willie was quite hands off. You know, he was not dictating what could or should or shouldn't or couldn't be in this documentary. From what we heard, he has watched it and seems to like it.

He has viewed it repeatedly, according to someone who told Nelson that. So that's nice. I'm glad he's getting enjoyment out of it. But he was not putting his thumb on the scale and putting his foot down. There were certain things that he didn't want to talk about, but he wasn't saying, you can't talk about them or no one else can talk about them. So I feel like we're getting a fairly well-rounded, comprehensive portrait, or as comprehensive as it can be in an hour and 40 minutes or so when you have a life as long and rich as Willie Mays'. Yeah, I wish that. It's so funny because sometimes, you know, do you ever

have this experience, Ben, where you watch a documentary and it'll be like a multi-part thing and you're like, you could have done it in one fewer episode than that. Do you ever have that experience? Yeah. And it always involves murder when that happens and i was like i could have spent an hour less on all this murder probably but this was one of the instances where i was like you know if we were to get another installment in this i would not i would not say no to that right so i might say i might say hey that's terrible you should cut it. That was bad. It was so bad. It's like embarrassing. Leave it in, Dylan. It's the worst one I've ever done. whom he had, but like his romantic life, you know, there's a little bit in there about his first wife and divorce and how that was maybe at least partly a result of the discrimination that

they were facing at the time. But then his second wife, you know, married for decades and decades. I mean, there's a mention, but we don't really like hear that much from his perspective about that relationship or anything. You know, it's about his historic significance and his baseball career and the context and the background and the conditions at the time and all of that. So there's probably not a ton of time for like the love stories of Willie Mays' life. But, you know, I would have enjoyed hearing a little bit more about that and what that brought to his life. So that's an example of something that I don't think necessarily should have been in this given the constraints, but just, hey, I'd be interested in hearing more about that. And other little episodes, I'm sure Willie Mays scholars could point to all sorts of events that were given short shrift or were not mentioned.

Just there's no time. But there was the time when he was briefly banned from baseball after he retired because he was a spokesman or a greeter or whatever it was for a casino. And there was just kind of a regrettable you know commissioner peter uberoth was like well we can't have this uh person associated with with major league baseball the sacrosanct game and you know that was obviously repealed and he's been welcomed back with open arms but that was in light of just the way things have gone since then and in recent years and the idea that like any sort of association with sports betting or gambling or whatever could get you banned from baseball i know no longer the case you know

shouldn't have been the case in his case at least back then either but it's just kind of a historical curiosity it's just a sign of the times very different times from these but really it was just great to hear about him in his own words and in other words. And I enjoyed, like, he has kind of like a Garrett Cole voice, like it's a little higher than you might expect. And there were multiple people who kind of like did Willie Mays impressions. Yeah. There was an old clip of Leo DeRocher doing in and then a contemporary clip of Reggie Jackson doing one. And they did like high Willie Mays voices,

which I thought was amusing. They're friends. I guess you can do that when you have that kind of authority. But it definitely made me appreciate not just like how good he was or how valuable he was as a baseball player. I don't think that's lost on a lot of people. But some of the little things,

some of the things that don't show up in the box score, as they say, some of the leadership, which we will talk about, Nelson, like him kind of positioning outfielders. There's a great clip in there of him like in center gesturing with his glove at someone else to move one way or another, which was a really good illustrative inclusion of that, I thought. So a lot of smart filmmaking choices yeah i thought that it was just very well done and the opportunity to see like careful and and thoughtful filmmaking around um such an important person to the game's history is just like a real treat and you know this made me want to be like go go make 10 more go find 10 more guys and let's hear from them because. That's why we call all the non-engineerians constantly on this podcast. Yeah.

They're not all Willie Mays caliber players. In fact, none of them is, but, you know, we do our best here. I don't think we would try to cold call Willie Mays. No, I think we've actually brought that up before. I would be much too intimidated to do that. Absolutely not. And I don't say that to disrespect the many men whose days we've interrupted with our calls. But I would not feel, I would feel so, I just feel way too nervous to do that. He has not always been the most forthcoming with the media, understandably, because everyone always wants to talk to William Hayes.

I'm sure they have since he was like 20 or whatever. So, you know, that's more than 70 years ago. So I think he's had his fill. So we're lucky that he decided to participate in this one. Yeah. Can you imagine someone wanting to talk to you all the time for 70 years? What if we podcast for that long then? My God.

It is better than no one wanting to talk to you, I think. That's definitely true. I mean, it depends, I guess, who wants to talk to you. And maybe you just value your solitude. Yeah. I mean, I would enjoy it if when I am 90, first of all, I'd enjoy just being 90. Making it to 90, absolutely. Yes. But if someone wanted to cold call me because they thought I was interesting and had done something worth talking about and remembered I existed.

Right. That would be nice. Now, if it got to the point where it was Willie Mays level fame, well, maybe then you just kind of want to enjoy your golden years in peace. Oh, gosh. Yeah. I would not be remotely interested in that level of fame, but I don't think I'm ever going to do anything as well as Willie Mays played baseball, so I think I'll probably be safe.

Yeah. Don't tell yourself short. You must stay. You probably, you edit, I'm sure, almost as well as Willie Mays played baseball. No, that's okay though. It's a high bar. I'm not, I don't, yeah, it's okay. It's fine.

Very few people are as good at anything as Willie Mays was at baseball. It's all right. Yeah. I think if we point to superlative people, that's okay. That's not a ding on the rest of us. It's just an indication that they're really great yeah and there's some great footage that nelson sort of alludes to of him playing stickball as a young player with kids in the streets of harlem which again was just sort of this is how things worked then you know i mean not that baseball players are not personable now and and they're still real

people with real lives and they'll talk to kids and sign baseballs for them and everything they're very courteous for the most part but just the fact that Willie Mays was just walking around Harlem and I'm sure it was not filmed every day I'm glad it was ever filmed but the fact that he would just like get up and go get some breakfast and then just like walk down the street, stop and play stickball with the kids, you know, like the biggest baseball star in the world, the best baseball player there was. That's something that you would not see so much now. I mean, you don't so much see kids playing stickball in the street in New York either for that matter. But if they did, then you would probably not see your baseball supers. There's a greater remove, which is something that Roger Angel wrote about and

lamented, not in a kind of ornery way, but just, well, there's a different relationship now between media members and players, between fans and players. There's a big salary gap. There's just a little less access. There's more access in some ways. There's social media and footage, and we can watch them whenever we want. But just in terms of kind of hobnobbing with the hoi polloi, it's like you're in a much different tax bracket now. And that does change things a little bit. So I'm not saying that should happen and that contemporary players should be just walking around and playing pickup games with kids. But the fact that that did used to happen, even with a player as skilled and famous as Willie Mays, kind of cool.

And lastly, I guess just the basket catch, which everyone knows. I mean, the documentary hits the high points and the catch against Vic Wirtz and all the highlights, but the basket catch, how cool to have a signature move. I feel like I've underrated that because I guess everyone has some uniqueness to what they do, whether it's just a slightly different stance or a slightly different delivery. Although again, I think those things have become more homogenous over time, but to have a unique way of catching a baseball, there aren't many players who have that. Like, oh, this is how he caught. I mean, some players use two hands, some players use one hand, but the basket catch. And it's not even like, oh, he was ahead of its time. Like it caught on, you know, everyone's been basket catching ever since. And he was just the basket catch trailblazer. Like you don't see that happen so often. And the documentary doesn't mention this, but from what I understand, he explained in 1954 in an article

that he did it because he thought it gave him an advantage in getting the throw off, which is interesting because I would not think that that's the case. If you lower your arms, then don't you have to then raise them to throw? But that was his explanation at the time anyway. Maybe he was just saying something to say something.

It just felt natural to him. But how cool to have a trademark move basically as an outfielder. I mean, guys will dive and guys will leap and guys will run this way and that, but there aren't that many who you could say like, oh, that's the thing that he does that no one else really does with any kind of consistency. So I guess that added to his legend and just made him immediately recognizable as Willie Mays.

But there are only so many ways that a player can do something so distinctive and singular because there have been many, many baseball players and generally like they're prescribed ways to perform baseball moves, Yeah. I mean, I guess anyone could have some weird way of catching and then just drop the ball a lot, but that would not be so cool. So it was really entertaining and we recommend it. You can go watch it either soon or now, depending on when you're listening to this. So again, it's called Say Hey, Willie Mays. It's on HBO and HBO Max, all the ways that you can stream things. And we will take a quick break and we'll be back with the director of the documentary, Nelson George. All right. Well, we are joined now by the director of Say Hey, Willie Mays, Nelson George. Nelson, welcome to the show. Hey, how you doing, guys? Thank you for having me. Doing well. Congrats on the release. We enjoyed the movie.

And I've got to say, I'm sure that your motivation for making this documentary was not just to see how many incredibly cool people you could get in a room with you to talk about baseball. But if it had been your sole goal here, I would say that you completely achieved it. Because not only just chatting with Willie Mays, but the late Vin Scully and so many other baseball legends, Orlando Cepeda and Juan Marichal and Barry Bonds and Reggie Jackson and Dusty Baker and Bob Costas and Willie Brown and Harry Edwards and John Miller and the list goes on and on. So just to start, I guess, how did you get Willie on board? And then beyond that, how do you decide whom to speak to, to try to tell the story of Willie Mays? Well, the producers of this project, Colin Hanks and Sean Stewart, they're lifelong Giant fans. And they had been trying to get Willie, I think at least since 2015. They collaborated with Uninterrupted, which is LeBron James's company, and put a package together. They approached me

because I'd worked with Sean and Colin on a series for HBO called Tales from the Tour Bus, Sean and Colin on a series for HBO called Tales from the Tour Bus, which was kind of an animated music docuseries. For me, Willie Mays was a guy who we, I remember I played, I grew up playing stickball on the streets of New York in the 60s and 70s. And the Giants were a very special team. They were largely, they were one of the first teams to have a large contingent of both Black and Latino players. And I grew up on a block with Puerto Rican kids and black kids.

So everyone imitated Juan Manuel Rochelle's leg kick. Everyone tried to do the McCovey stretch. Willie McCovey was the first baseman, had this incredibly long body. And then, of course, there was Willie Mays and the basket catch. So he was such a, that team meant a lot. And then when he traded to the Mets in 72, the New York media, he just went crazy. It was like, Jesus had come home. So I was introduced to him at that time and sort of at that point got the lore and the history of Willie. And it was always fascinating with him. So what happened is that when I finally, when I got the

gig, obviously you want to talk to his peers. Orlando Cepeda, wonderful guy. So funny. So honest. Juan Marichal. But I also wanted to contextualize Willie because Willie was not an overtly civil rights figure. Unlike, let's say, in the way Jackie was or definitely some, you know, the later 60s athletes. So Harry Edwards was someone I desperately wanted in the way Jackie was, or definitely some, you know, the later 60s athletes. So Harry Edwards was someone I desperately wanted in the film. And between COVID and his schedule, it took a while

to grab him. But I knew that he was both a person who was going to criticize Willie on some level, from the perspective of sort of the late 60s activism, but also he was old enough to have grown up with Willie and have a different context for him as a player so I thought I always thought that Harry was was really a crucial figure and then to get Willie Brown Willie I just knew I needed someone to talk about black San Francisco and uh who better than someone who came there in the 50s from Texas was a young lawyer and made his way through the ranks but I didn't know when we sat down was how well he knew Willie and how he knew Willie's wife to both Willie's wives. And so he was able to give both a really great context for San Francisco

before it became the liberal bastion that it is now in the 50s. And also some real insight into Willie as a man. So those two guys to me were really crucial because I felt like they were going to give me a bigger context for Willie. I knew Bob Costas would give me the baseball. I knew that, you know, Vin Scully, who, you know, is a peer of Willie's essentially, was a peer of Willie's, the late Vin Scully. He knew Willie from the beginning of his career because he started his career in New York at the same time. And also Todd Boyd, the cultural historian professor at USC. I needed some voice.

I wanted some black voices as well because I felt like a lot of times Willie had been framed as a great crossover star, which he was. But I wanted some men who had followed the game who would have some different kinds of insights into him. the game who would have some different kinds of insights into them. I'm sure that when you're trying to do justice to a life as rich as Maze's wasn't as long, that you have to leave some things out, particularly when you start to get participation from certain figures in the game and you want to make sure you're giving airtime to them. So I'm curious if there was anything that sort of got left on the cutting room floor that, you know, if you'd had half an hour longer, you would have wanted to include. Oh, yeah.

I mean, tons. I mean, he's lived a big life. Yeah. I would say the one thread that got cut out that would have been interesting was Mickey Mantle. So when we got Barry, we had a whole section with sort of their careers in parallel because Mickey and Willie joined their prospective iconic teams in 1951 they both went to the world series their first year they both became giants you know

literally giant stars in new york in the 50s uh and kind of you know when people talk about baseball who are children of the 50s 60s and seven it's you know It's Willie and Mickey loom incredibly large. But when you got Barry, Barry's story and his relationship with Willie and his father's relationship with Willie became such a compelling story that that relationship between Willie and Mickey kind of got lost. Because a couple of things about that. A, they started together. They were these icons in the 50s in New York

when New York was the center of baseball. And they were, I don't know, I can't say they were super close friends, but they were, I would say they were comrades. And when I say that is that they were both players who wanted to make more money. And they used to talk about making money together. They would have kind of semi-annual meetings

or phone calls. How much did the Yankees offer you? How much did the Giants offer you? And they were trying to push the amount of money. They were the two highest played players in baseball at a certain time. So they had that kind of, that had that relationship. And then after they both retired, money was a big issue for both of them. And they both became spokespeople, greeters at two different casinos. Right. And they both got banned from baseball because of it.

And then they got both brought back into baseball together. So there was a whole thread that started with their beginnings as young guys, how they interacted with each other in New York, and then later. But that was a thread that got lost because these sort of, I would say what happened is that the first day I sat with Willie, he kept using a phrase called take care of. He said this about six times. He said, Piper Davis, my first manager with the Birmingham Black Barons, took care of me. Yeah.

When I got to New York, Leo DeRocha took care of me. And then when it kind of switched, when he went to San Francisco, I took care of Orlando Cepeda. I took care of Bobby Bonds. So I realized that this idea of mentorship, and to some degree, fathers and sons, or even symbolic fathers and sons, or real fathers and sons, was a real thread in his life, going from his time when his father took him on a baseball field when he was five years old, all the way through his relationship with Barry Bonds now. And so that became a big thematic link, I think, that made it, hopefully took it off the field of just being a Wikipedia page of Willie and gave it some

thematic substance. And so the, like Mickey story, and there's a few, a couple of other threads that kind of, once I kind of narrowed in on that, those other threads kind of got lost because they weren't as resonant, quite honestly. Sure. Did you get the sense that he was motivated to participate because he wanted to set the record straight about certain things or emphasize certain things that had been de-emphasized about his story? Or was it more of just, hey, I like talking baseball and telling stories. So if you want to come talk to me, I'm happy to do it. Well, you know, it's interesting. I never got a straight answer from him actually about why he finally decided to do it because he's been approached for decades. Since he retired, you know, he was, he retired at 42 and he's 90. When we met first time, he was 90

and he's never agreed to do a authorized sit-it-down interview, like having cameras in his house, telling his friends to talk to us. He just had never done that. I do think there's something about legacy. I actually think, and this is just my guess, but I think the Jordan last dance had a big effect, I think, on a lot of the major athletes. I think that's one reason Magic Johnson just did his thing. I think a lot of them, Brady just did something,

Jared Dieter. I think something about that Jordan thing, media series made people, a lot of these iconic players go like, I need to put my thing down and let people know and have my chance at the plate, so to speak. So I think that that's somehow in the air, that sense of these guys wanting to tell their story. So I think that played a role. And I do think that that's somehow in the air, you know, that sense of these guys wanting to tell their story.

So I think that played a role. And I do think that he acknowledges that, you know, he's getting older, really older, and he's the oldest living Hall of Famer. Yeah. And the other thing that happened during the years of the pandemic was a lot of people I would have interviewed for this doc died. Hank Aaron, who he was obviously a peer of and friends. Hank Aaron, who he was obviously a peer of and friends. Tom Seaver of the Mets, who he actually really had a close relationship with when he played for the Mets. He used to call Tom Seaver Spanky, as Spanky and our gang.

Joe Morgan, who's one of the people he really mentored very profoundly. And there's a bunch of others. Bob Gibson. I mean, some of the greatest players of that 60s, 70s era died right either just before the pandemic started or during the pandemic. And so there was a certain urgency, I think, on his part to get my words down. Yeah, I think that was one of the things that I really appreciated. Not that the documentary doesn't present him as complicated and nuanced, but so often in the last couple of years, it has felt like we've kind of lost our opportunity collectively as people who care about baseball to, you know, recognize and celebrate these guys while they're still alive and around to enjoy it. Or so often writing,

you know, obituaries and retrospectives on careers rather than getting to hear from them directly and personally. So that was one of the things that really struck me is what a, you know, treasure it is to get to hear from him directly on his own life at a time when, you know, we can all have a conversation about him while he's still here, you know? Oh, absolutely. I mean, you know, it's funny, one of the reasons I really wanted Reggie, at first, you know, I just wanted Reggie first intellectually, because Reggie, I know he had played in the Bay Area and obviously with the Yankees so he had this New York Bay Area connection and had become a celebrity in

New York obviously in a different era but I saw Reggie when Hank Aaron died Reggie gave a I was a very impressive you know how to eulogy speech about Hank. And I felt like, well, if he knows Hank like that, he obviously knew Willie. And actually, his relationship with Willie was much stronger. They became very close after Willie retired. So Reggie was, you know, fantastic. I have to tell you a story, though. So when I was a 20, a 19, 20 year old black newspaper intern in New York. I worked for the sports editor. And it was during the time when Reggie was in Yankees. And Reggie was always, some controversy was Billy Martin back then. And they sent me up to Yankee Stadium to get a quote from Reggie.

I grew up in Brooklyn with then the Yankee second baseman, Willie Randolph. And I said, Willie, will you take me over to meet Reggie Jackson I don't know him and he goes no man I think you need to go over there by yourself so that should have been my signal that I was in trouble and literally Reggie Jackson is sitting on a chair in a locker room shirtless holding a bat you know this is you know his Yankee pants on looking quite formidable I noticed no one's talking to Reggie like this should have been a sign and I basically went to Reggie and asked him, you know, tried to get a quote out of him. He kind of bit my head off and I got something I could scribble down on paper. And I remember like, oh, that's for God. Reggie Jackson is a tough, not that, you know, he's not that easy a guy.

And so when I interviewed him years later, I kind of asked him about that. And he's still kind of, you know, he's much mellow, but he's still got that edge to him. And I think that's interesting, too, is that Willie, everyone talks about the Say Hey Kid, you know, in New York. And he's this great, smiling, joyous guy. When he got to play in San Francisco, he wasn't, you know, he matured. His voice got lower. And so he did have a bit of a tough reputation among a lot of sports writers. So these guys are, there's something about being critiqued in the newspapers on a daily basis that's very unique to athletes.

No, none of us every day are being critiqued on our performance. And so that creates a kind of edge, I think, and sort of even with people I like, some kind of suspicion or, you know, sometimes taciturn because you're like, eh, what's this guy going to say about me tomorrow? So with Willie, I definitely had to sort of crack or fight my way through some of that, that he received at the time about how he's not going to go out and pick it or stand on a soapbox and preach, but that he was contributing in his own way. And you included some context and people commenting to that effect. He didn't speak himself on that subject. I think the contemporary Willie in the final cut. So I wonder whether that is something that you final cut. So I wonder whether that is something that you did address with him now, whether that's something that he thinks about now

or that he wants to correct the record on or whether that bothers him at all or whether he essentially just sort of repeated his message from the time. And all of the time, that answer back to Robinson was in a spring training 1968. That's the only really extensive commentary Willie would make about Robinson and about the criticism. He never would address it in person. He only has complimentary things to say about Jackie. And contextually, I found out that the only reason he even made that statement was that Jackie kind of attacked Willie several times during the 60s. I think the first time was in 62. And then throughout the decade, he was critical of him. But the only reason Willie addressed that one apparently was because two younger Giant players had kind of been thrown in by Jackie and his comment, and he felt

like he wanted to defend them. So yeah, he doesn't want to, at this point, you know, really address race in a sort of a confrontational way. He's not defensive. But what I got from him about the Robinson relationship was twofold. One was, A, he's not a, I think he was insecure, quite honestly, and about being out there talking about it explicitly. He always viewed Robinson as this college-educated, Army-raised, you know, when Jackie entered the major leagues, he was 28, I believe, and, you know, graduated from UCLA. Willie was 20 and had come from an Alabama high school, you know, literally a year and a half before. So there was a certain insecurity, in my opinion, that manifested itself. Even whenever I brought up Jackie, that sense of

Jackie was this elevated person, not just as a player, but as a man and as a thinker. I think the comment that I think that Barry Bonds makes in the film about other people being better spokespeople, I think really, Willie believed that. I think Willie, it's not that Willie wasn't a helper of tons of people and Willie Brown attests to that, but I don't think he felt comfortable or felt like he was articulate enough to be that person. Now you can make your own judgment about that, but certainly that was a very personal feeling of his, I think it's a sense of insecurity. I'm curious, you mentioned the theme that emerged of fathers and sons and his relationship with Barry Bonds. And the film highlights his sort of impromptu remarks when Bonds' number was retired by the Giants. He's clearly not unaware

of the controversy that surrounded his godson. Yes. And so I'm curious what it was like to talk to him about that and sort of what his perspective on all of that is, maybe beyond his previous public comments, because I can imagine, especially as a filmmaker, that that's a thorny thing to try to grapple with honestly, but also respectfully, given the relationship that he still has with Bonds.

I would say this about Willie, which I got, is that Willie has a circle of loyalty. And if you're in his circle, he's got your back, at least publicly, forever. And if you're outside the circle, he doesn't care. I would say this, the way to look at the Barry Bonds, his relationship to Barry and his defense of Barry is to go barry and his defense of barry is to go back and remember his defense of alvin dark so alvin dark is you know accused and you know to payda and marichal to all the latin players i interviewed all talked about alvin being intolerant of them speaking spanish in the locker room of him denigrating you know spanish players

their work ethic but malvin had made will Willie the first black captain of a Major League Baseball team, and it had given him an incredible amount of power in terms of what happened on the field. So even though Alvin had said stuff that Willie was uncomfortable with, he's not going to diss Alvin Dark. He's going to try and make it work between the Latin players and the manager. And he did as long as he could until Alvin got fired. So you cut to Barry and the accusations about Barry and Barry's own kind of public comments or lack of public comments, if you will. And Barry's his godson. I'm not going to say anything bad about my godson. And I'm not going to criticize him. I'm going to support him

and try and elevate him as much as I can, because I believe he's a great player and I criticize him. I'm going to support him and try and elevate him as much as I can, because I believe he's a great player and I love him. And that's Willie. It's about, if you've done right by me, or if we have a connection that I really value, I got you. And it's simple as that. He's got very old school values. He's not going to, like, there's a funny bit in the, I think in the closing credits where I asked him about meeting Babe Ruth And you know, he's not gonna talk about I got the feeling he did I mean my impression was he didn't really like Babe Ruth But he's not gonna say it and there's there's a few stories that didn't make it into the film about

Situations he was in that I brought up and you know, he's not I put it you this way I'm sitting across from him and I realized I was born in 1957. Willie was playing baseball in 1951. I'm not, he's been being interviewed longer than I've been alive. So I'm not going to trick him into saying something them down, he would shut them down. And the other thing that's so interesting, you know, about doing something like this is how many, there's not that many people you can talk to who are, who were there aside from him for some of these things. Right. Bill Greeson is a, is a great get. Bill Greeson, he's 95, no, probably 96. 98, I think. Yeah. That's basically it, you know, like, so if Willie tells you he's not going to talk about it, it's hard to find someone who, another source that can give you, you know, everyone else is kind of working from what Willie said. And also, you know, the other thing that's very clear about that generation is they're not, this is that, I think we're so used to people blabbing everything that they think. That generation did not do that.

So when they shut you down, you're shut down. They're not going to talk about it. It's interesting that for someone who played at such a high level for a quarter century, essentially, that a couple of the things that often come up with me are the very beginning and the very end of his career when he struggled. And you touch on both of those to varying degrees. And I don't know whether it's just because it humanizes him to an extent, even the god Willie Mays could struggle occasionally or what, but I'm glad that you treated the end of his career the way that you did, because I've always thought that that just got so overblown, the cliche,

the stereotype of him stumbling around the outfield, which is really just based on this one game where he lost some balls in the sun, which may or may not have had anything to do with his age. And really, he was one of the best old players of all time. He was still a great player in his second to last season. And I'm always just in favor of, hey, play as long as you want to. Play as long as you can. Play as long as it brings you enjoyment. You know, the idea of, oh, you've got to hang it up when you're no longer at your best anymore. It's somehow going to soil your legacy, which I've always thought is silly because, hey, you did what you did when you were at your peak in your prime.

And nothing that comes after that really tarnishes what you had done in the past, in my mind, if we're talking about actions on the field. So it's just interesting that that seemingly has been so blown out of proportion, and you had to address it just because it's a big part of the late career narrative about Willie Mays, sort of strangely, really. Man, you know, when I brought that up with Reggie Jackson, who was obviously there, he was like, he bristled. I mean, you can tell in the film, he's like, oh, you know, he really was, he almost chewed my head off about, you know, this son game. Yeah, I mean, I wanted to deal, because that picture's been used so much of him with the

manager. I didn't even have a context. I always thought, because I vaguely remember that game, and even when we looked back on it, I remember him getting the hit. But it was a shot of him on his knees pleading with the Empire, and we gave context for what he was doing and how that happened. And Reggie was really, really great on the sunfield and really detailing what happened. Another person, unfortunately, who got chopped out, we had Vida Blue as well interviewed for the film, who was obviously there. And so their depictions of that last game were very important to have because I think they gave a, Reggie, you know, really gave a context for what you were watching.

The thing we couldn't get in that really kind of frustrated me a bit was because of time is that Willie did not, that was, I think, the second, he didn't play the rest of the series. That Yogi Berra kind of benched him after that. And it's just a shame that he didn't get a chance to get another. But his last at bat in the major leagues was an RBI single that won a game that gave the base to give the go ahead run. So that's as good as it gets. Yeah. I was reading an essay by Bill James in the latest Bill James handbook that just came out. And James is a little bit older than you are, but maybe you could identify with this. He wrote, when I was a kid, there was a next Willie Mays every three or four years. The first next Willie Mays was Veda Pinson. And then there was

Jose Cardinal. Cardinal hit 35 home runs and stole 64 bases his first season in the minors when he was 17. And then he had 36 and 35 when he was 19, hitting over 300 both times. So he was the next Willie Mays. Then Tommy Agee was the next Willie Mays, 1966 and 69. And then Bobby Bonds was, which of course you cover in the movie. And then Cesar Cedeno, and then Andre Daw Dawson and then Eric Davis. And then eventually people kind of stopped looking for the next Willie Mays and started looking for the next Ricky Henderson or somebody, which is true. I guess we don't typically talk about players today in terms best embodies Willie Mazur has some of those same qualities, because really that eye-catching quality that he had just kind of leaps off the screen, even in the archival footage that you have there, whether it's him just leaping around or just the violence of the swing or whatever it is, his expressions, he's just very telegenic. He's just riveting. Obviously, he had all the tools and he had all the skills and everything.

But more so than, say, Mike Trout, who I guess is often used as the example of he's great, but he doesn't necessarily jump off the screen with his greatness. And, of course, he gets comped to Mickey Mantle all the time. I wonder whether you have thought of anyone these days or whether anyone brought up as you were talking to them that so-and-so exemplifies Mays today or in recent years. Nobody. It's incomparable, I guess. Nobody. I mean, nobody, zero. I mean, the actual, one of my favorite things that we didn't put in the movie was i asked people what what musicians willie maves was comparable to and that got some wonderful todd boyd thought duke ellington

cjm blues other people thought charlie parker most of the artists we mentioned were jazz musicians a because of the period and b because of the you know baseball is unlike basketball which is a basketball is a totally improvisational sport in a sense you know you have set plays but you know most of the time it's instinct deciding what you did football has a very strong improvisational character the quarterback and the running back and even some of the linebackers have this idea they could take off and do something off off the off the book and make a play but baseball is much more structured because of the nature of how the game is played you go one base at a time blah blah blah but he particularly his play in the outfield really brought people to think about him as a jazz musician as a creator of new melodies within

the game and so that was really really the comparison that came up. More than other players, it was other musicians. It's funny too, because I was able to get the great jazz musician, Marcus Miller, to do the score for the film. And the aesthetic of the film, sonically, was, you know, we said Blue Note Records 50s, 60s. To me, that was like, you know, trying to capture that there's a jazzy soulfulness that comes with Willie that that blue note period sort of for us captured. So, yeah, I mean, it's funny, like it was musicians who were the ones who were the comparison points for us. Also, I just should mention that Chuck D does a closing credit song and people always think Chuck D, Public Enemy, radical political group. Chuck is a fanatical baseball fan.

And those baseball caps he wore with P-E, with the P, he meant those. He really, he was a baseball. So when I asked him about doing a track, he did the closing track. And he made it a lot jazzy. There's a trumpet solo and a Public Enemy record. So again, it was this idea of him as an equivalent figure, improvisational figure of the Coltrane's and of the Ellington's, Miles Davis. That was a very important thought. And that came up a lot, again, in our conversations.

One thing that came through really clearly is just how great a contribution it seems like he made as a captain, as kind of a conductor and choreographer in the outfield, just positioning people. But not only that, also behind the scenes, just diffusing tensions, setting an example, etc. And that's the kind of thing that it's very valuable to have this footage or to talk to contemporaries because you wouldn't necessarily know that from just looking at his eye-popping stats. And that's something that I don't know if you get quite as much today. Clearly, there's still a lot of value in leadership and clubhouse presence and mentorship and all of that. But there are so many coaches now, and there's so much front office input. And when you even have a captain, which is not common, often it's sort of a ceremonial position.

It's kind of a figurehead more than anything else, it seems like. But with him, it seems like it was really an active role. I mean, he was as much a manager as the manager himself at times, it seemed like. That was one of the reasons I think he never managed. He did it already. Yeah. He would be the first guy in the shower. He was the first guy out of the shower.

He would be the first person. He would even sometimes wait for the team bus. He would take a taxi or car back to whatever hotel they were on the road. He would organize sandwiches, non-alcoholic beverages, and sort of host these marathon card games when they were in Chicago or Cincinnati or Pittsburgh, and it wasn't just the black players. It would be Jim Davenport and those guys, as well as the Cepedas, as well as, you know, the Willie McCoveys. He was very, very much about community. And that was a big, like I said, this thing about take care of and mentor. That was a huge thing that came up from Tito Fuentes, from Cepeda, from Marichal. They all talked about this sense of him creating community among the players.

Because, you know, one of the things that comes up is that when Willie played, I think, especially in the years in San Francisco, they had like four or five managers. You know, at the same time, the Dodgers had the same guy, Walt Austin, that whole time. I mean, the Giants kept getting different managers. At the same time, the Dodgers had the same guy at Austin that whole time. The Giants kept getting different managers. Part of that was Stoneham's... We did a screening last night in San Francisco of the film.

When Stoneham's pictures first popped up, there was some booing. Like, wow, they still hold a grudge out here. Some people really like... His stewardship of the team was not well-remembered out here. Some people really like, you know, his stewardship of the team was not, you know, well remembered out here. So because of the instability, you know, Herman Franks, Alvin Dark, Clyde King, Bill Rigney, that's four. I think there might be one more during his tenure there.

Willie had to be that guy because he was the stability in the franchise. So yes, definitely he had, that's a role that he took on. And he kind of, I believe that goes all the way back to his days in the Negro Leagues. The idea that, you know, as the leader of the team or one of the leaders, you had to take care of the guys and not just on the field, but make sure that they got where they needed to be. They didn't stay out too late. And, you know, there was a certain level of commitment. Not that he was, I wouldn't say Willie, of course, the monk-like existence in the 60s, but all the stories about him are very much about, I don't drink, I don't smoke. I don't hang out, even in San Francisco. I have a great place. If the Cardinals come to town,

I'll invite Bob Gibson and Lou Brock over for dinner. When the Reds come to town, I'll invite Bob Gibson or and Lou Brock over for dinner. We know when the Reds come to town, I think Frank Robin, I mean, that was very much what he did. He created, people came to him, they played pool, like they talk trash. But that was kind of his life. And so there was a, I keep saying, I don't say not Spartan, but it's a dedication to the craft. That's the difference between him being a great athlete. There are guys who could throw better, there are guys who were faster, but his level of study of the game when you talk to him about, and then you talk to Barry about what Willie taught him, it's very clear that he was in a zen zone about the game and he lived it and breathed it.

Yeah. And that was part of how that team was so good. If not a great team, they were always competitive. Right. Yeah. You have to get lucky to live as long as he has, obviously. But in a sense, I'm not surprised that he has because clearly he took care of himself. I'll tell you one more thing he said to me.

He said, in 1951, I had a 32-inch waist. In 1973, I had a 32-inch waist. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. You know, like seeing his face as an older player, like his face ages and, you know, his mutton chops get longer, right? The sideburns grow. But, you know, he still looked trim,

unlike a lot of players, right? Who fill out, let's say, charitably, right? And this is in the era of, there's no training staff. Right, I was going to say, you know, yeah, you have these shots of him, you know, in the clubhouse, in the locker room, he's in incredible shape. He wouldn't look out of place in a clubhouse. Right, exactly.

One of the things I really wanted to have those shots in there, because I remember, I don't know who it was, some NBA player last year was saying, you know, back in the 60s, those guys played against plumbers and firemen. Right, exactly. Okay, dude. Well, this is Willie Mays. What do you think now? Yeah, right. Exactly.

He's ripped, you know? Yeah. It's like, maybe it's a misconception that, you know, athletes weren't athletic before they started weight training. Dude, I got to tell you, I you, at the very end of that thing where I'm shaking Willie's hand or trying to shake Willie's hand, his hands are enormous.

Yeah. And one of his favorite things is to get young guys like me to shake his hand. And everybody, I'll tell you one more story. So we first meet Willie. We go to the ballpark

and this is in 2000 just before the pandemic so it's september 2019 so my producer goes in he's the first one and he's like oh willie's older guy i should you know don't squeeze his hand will he put he shakes with it willie goes you call that a handshake yeah and that that's one of his favorite things Even at 90, I tell you the truth Even at 90 he's still a physical specimen His hands are used, his forearms Are like ham hocks

So what you're seeing He was blessed but he also Manifested that physicality With understanding of the game He was playing You can kind of play the what if game with him A little just you know if he hadn't missed the time for military service, how many more home runs would he have hit that kind of thing? But he clearly, you know, when he was on the field and in uniform,

he didn't squander an iota of his talent. It doesn't seem like which is quite a contrast from Mickey Mantle, right? Yes. You know, all the stories about Maze didn't smoke, didn't drink. It's the opposite with Mantle, obviously. And i guess that leaves you with fewer sordid tales to tell as a director but but listen i mean i think that's also there's something to be said for for highlighting greatness and the pursuit of greatness and that is not a pursuit that is not everyone who's gifted wants to be great and not everyone gifted is willing to make the sacrifices to be great. For him, the center of his life was baseball. Last night, again, in San Francisco, when we showed the film, it's like a theater full of giant fans. When he says, I had a love affair

with baseball, I mean, people are crying in there. Because that was a profound statement, that everything he did and said, said, yes, he did love the game. Well, we've really just scratched the surface here, which is fine because we have left a lot for people to dig into when they watch the movie. And I hope that they will. And, you know, I so enjoyed the outtakes essentially over the credits. You mentioned him talking about Babe Ruth and other things. I mean, not to diminish the impact of your direction at all, and you're putting the story together, but I would have happily just watched you

chatting with Willie Mays for an hour and a half or however many hours you spent with him, just without any production or anything. I'm sure that would have been entertaining too. So I envy you getting to be in that room. Oh man, listen, I'll just say this. He treated me like a rookie pitcher. Well, it was great. Thank you very much for making it. And thanks for coming on to talk to us, Nelson George.

Thank you. I appreciate it. Thank you guys. Appreciate it so much. All right, that will do it for today. Thanks as always for listening. Hope you'll check out the documentary. And if you're hearing this on election day, it's not too late to go vote if you're eligible to.

If you're hearing this after election day, I'm afraid it is too late, but hopefully you did. We are always willing to accompany you to the polls in audio form. Just put us in your ears and we will keep you company on the line if there is one. If anyone was wondering whether I got a hankering to call 98-year-old Bill Greeson, who was featured in Say Hey, well, of course I did. I gave him a call and spoke to him briefly, but I didn't catch him at a great time. Perhaps we could have him on another day. I just didn't want anyone to think I was slipping. Other than Mays, Greeson is the sole surviving person who played in the Negro Leagues during the period when they are now classified as major leagues and also in the American League or National League.

And look, if you show me a documentary about 91-year-old Willie Mays and there's someone even older than that who can tell you how he took a young Willie Mays under his wing, well, you know I'm going to want to talk to that guy. And really, even though we couldn't have him on today, please do check out his Sabre bio. I will link to it on the show page because he has had a long and fascinating life. Reverend Bill Greeson, World War II combat veteran, won a game for the Birmingham Black Barons in the final Negro Leagues World Series, later played for the St. Louis Cardinals,

played with Mays and Clemente in winter ball, was a trailblazing black player and black pitcher in multiple leagues. And really, his baseball life is just scratching the surface. Grew up across the street from Martin Luther King. Would watch a documentary about Bill Greeson. Should note also that Say Hey interviewee Dusty Baker will be back with the Astros, he confirmed. And it sounds like GM James Click will as well. Bob Nightingale tweeted that Astros owner Jim Crane had spoken with Dusty and with Click

on Monday and plans to formally extend each of them a contract for the 2023 season. Doesn't mention any years beyond that. There was tons of reporting about Crane not wanting one or maybe both of them back. Maybe his hands are tied now because they just had a dominant postseason and won the World Series, so there's really no grounds to dismiss them. One would hope it would be more than a one-year offer, unless that's what they want. Maybe this is just a grudging guess I've got to give you a contract here or at least make an offer, but really not offering at least multiple years. Seems like a slight, a slight slight after the season they just had. Also one follow-up,

last episode I mentioned that these playoffs had been fun, but that I didn't think that would necessarily translate to say win probability added or win expectancy swings. We just didn't have a lot of really long series with tons of lead changes and close games. There were close games, but I didn't think it was a notable playoffs in terms of the suspense of the games. And former Effectively Wild guest and Patreon supporter,

Michael Mountain, ran the math on that. He actually has a spreadsheet that he updates on this, and I will link to it on the show page. It's a spreadsheet of championship leverage index data for the entirety of AL and NL postseason history. Championship leverage index just tells you essentially what the stakes of any given moment or game are in terms of how they swing your odds of winning a World Series. So Michael calculated that the 2022 World Series ranked in the middle of the pack, 63rd highest average championship leverage index in a sample of 118. However, this is the third lowest rank in the last 10 years, ahead of only last year's,

which was 90th, and 2018's, which was 68th. Both LCS matchups rated in the bottom third all time. The NLCS was 72nd and the ALCS was 101st out of 106. However, the NLCS only graded out as 9th worst in the last decade, so basically middle of the pack for recent years. There have been some bad LCSs lately. The Yankees-Guardians-ALDES matchup, which did go 5, was the 25th most exciting divisional series ever, sample size of 116,

and the 14th most exciting of the past decade. Unsurprisingly, he notes, as the playoffs have expanded, the average CLI measured across the entire postseason has gone down. This year measured the second lowest average CLI of any postseason on record, surpassing only the 2020 season that included twice as many wildcard matchups. If you count only games in the divisional round and later, this was the 20th most exciting postseason of the Divisional era. That's 29 seasons. If you count only LCS and World Series games, this was the 40th most exciting. Since Divisional play began in 1969, that's 53 seasons. The Astros had the most exciting postseason run of any team, counting the average CLI across all games that they played in. The Mets narrowly surpassed the 2020 Blue Jays for least exciting postseason appearance in ALNL history.

Again, we'll link to the numbers there, but sort of supports my suspicion that this wouldn't show up as that remarkable. But it was fun because there were upsets and there were very memorable moments, even though they didn't always come in elimination games or game sevens or anything. There were no game sevens. I'm not complaining, just reporting. And I will leave you with the Pass Blast from Jacob Pomeranke, Sabres Director of Editorial Content and Chair of the Black Sox Scandal Research Committee. This is episode 1927, and therefore the Pass Blast comes from the year 1927. And Jacob headlines it, 1927, do you want to know a secret? He writes, the 1920s are seen as the first golden age in

sports with Babe Ruth's 60 home runs and the powerhouse 1927 Yankees held up as the pinnacle of that era for baseball. And while baseball in New York was as popular as ever, fans in other cities weren't always feeling the same excitement. The Yankees winning ways led to a few wacky ideas to keep people interested, as the Sporting News reported on September 29th. Quote, some years ago, it was quite seriously suggested, by magnates with losing clubs it may be presumed, that the standings of the club not be published day by day. The foolish thought that prompted this notion was that fans would then not know what clubs

were gaining or losing ground in a pennant race. Essentially, you would not know the championship leverage index. They would continue cheering for a tail-ender, maybe, thinking it was leading the procession. How silly, but club owners are like that. Now comes another idea from a correspondent who thinks something is needed to give novelty to baseball. It is that the playing dates of clubs be kept secret so that fans of any city will not know until the visiting team appears on the field what the day's opposition is to be. Bizarre indeed, but yet the bizarre of today is the commonplace of tomorrow. Well, not in this case.

And at this time in baseball, most any sort of suggestion to get it out of the old six and seven rut is welcome. It does seem baseball needs something or other. I like that. People have been suggesting specific ways that baseball needs to be changed or improved forever. This author just says it seems like baseball needs something or other. I like that. People have been suggesting specific ways that baseball needs to be changed or improved forever. This author just says it seems like baseball needs something or other. Let's leave it at that. Jacob notes that average attendance at American League ballparks was fewer than 7,500 fans per game in 1927, a 10% drop from three years earlier. And as the Great Depression took hold and the Yankees dynasty slowed down, attendance continued to drop to a low of 4,800 per game in 1933 for the AL. By the way, he says, the 6-7 rut mentioned here is similar to the

schedule minor league baseball switched back to in 2021, with six games in a row against the same team and then a common travel day. Seeing the same team over and over again was often cited as a reason for low attendance. Well, that makes some sense. You might get bored watching your team play the same team every day. As we noted, that seems to have happened even in the best of nine World Series that was played in the same city. You'd lose a little interest by the end. But wow, what an idea. Keep the identity of the visiting team secret.

So you're just spinning a wheel. You're rolling the dice when you show up to the park. You never know which team you'll see. And then keep the standings secret. I love it. How could you even enforce that secrecy, I wonder? But beyond that, I am tickled by the idea that you could just confuse your fans into thinking that they're watching a good team when in fact it's been a bad team all along.

This actually reminds me of something I used to say about the offseason that I thought it would be fun and exciting if we just didn't learn anything about player movement all winter and then all the players showed up in their new teams and their new uniforms at spring training and we all had just a wondrous day of finding out what happened and who signed where and who was traded. Well, last offseason with the lockout, we came uncomfortably close to that scenario. And I got to say, it's not great. The excitement of the spring training reveal, not at all worth the newsless several months that would precede it. I recant that suggestion.

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a little later this week. And so I will talk to you then. Oh, where did our circles turn? Old and young, going different ways. Really all words and ways go across the graveyard gates. Away, away, away, away.