Splash Considerations Ep. 16: Shea Hey Talks Say Hey (feat. John Shea)

SAN FRANCISCO — John Shea (@JohnSheaHey) of the San Francisco Standard once again joins the show to discuss the Giants dropping two of three to the San Diego Padres, as well as the process of writing “24: Life Stories and Lessons from the Say Hey Kid."

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:28

Welcome to another episode of Last Considerations. My name is Justice Del Santo San Francisco Giants, a reporter for the Bay Area News Group, San Jose Mercury News, East Bay Times, whatever you want to call us, as long as you read, as long as you subscribe. And speaking of subscribe, subscribe to the YouTube channel, follow us on Apple, follow us on Spotify, rate us five stars if you do feel so inclined. A lot of things in this life cost a lot of money, but following and subscribing, those things remain just free 99 and just a moment of your time. Earlier this week, the Giants celebrated what would have been the 95th birthday of the late great Willie Mays with the dedication of Willie Mays Highway, portions of I-80 leading into and out of San Francisco. And honestly, I'll take any opportunity that I can to talk about Willie Mays. So to talk about the Say Hey kid, we're gonna bring in Shay Hei himself, John Shea of the San Francisco standards. Shea, welcome back to the show.

SPEAKER_01 1:25

Good to see you and always appreciate that you embrace history, you know history. I sit right next to you in the uh press box, and I'm always stunned and excited and thrilled that uh you can just pull things out of the past like from your brain and say, hey, remember this. I say, Yeah, but you don't. You just know it.

SPEAKER_00 1:47

Good job by you. I would like to hope with all of the all the books back here. And for the for people that are listening and not watching, I'm wearing a Kansas City Monarchs hat. And my my opinion, this is this has always been my opinion, Satchel Page. And Shay's pulling out the the Birmingham Black Barons hat as well. Um, but in my opinion, Satchel Page, the greatest pitcher of all time. I don't care what numbers you throw at me. The fact that that man was pitching at 60, that's all I need to know. Three scoreless innings is 60. That's all I need to know, or 50, whatever it was.

SPEAKER_01 2:16

I think speaking of history, today's the 60-year anniversary of Orlando Cepeda being traded for Ray Sadeki.

SPEAKER_00 2:24

Oh, is it?

SPEAKER_01 2:25

Yeah, and nobody knows this, but I think it was Tito Fuena's Tito Fuene's best game ever. He had like four or five hits, he didn't get out, and he's all excited, and he goes in the clubhouse just pumped, you know, what a game. I'm just so thrilled. And then he sees Orlando crying at his locker. Oh no, what's up? What's up? So I've just been traded to St. Louis. Now Tito's crying because they were pals, and Tito still tells that story. He's like, my my the best day I ever had in the big leagues was ruined when my buddy was traded across the aisle, by the way.

SPEAKER_00 3:04

They were playing the Cardinals. Oh, geez, that's always how it goes. And since we're talking about Tito, it is funny that with all of the fashion trends in baseball, like you got Willie wearing the purple sleeve, you got a lot of guys wearing like the neon sleeves, you got like the oven mitts. No one's really done the the headband across the hat since T not at least not that I don't know of. I don't know if like that's a rule, I don't know if people just not doing it, but it feels like someone's like gotta have done it in like the last what 60 years. I don't know.

SPEAKER_01 3:35

And I remember him as a player, he was the first guy I ever saw in any sport where wristbands, wear jewelry, wear like turtlenecks. So I mean Maze was out there, McCovey was out there, Marshall was on the mound, but like you were watching Fawaites because he had a flair, he was fun to watch, and he turned a double play with Spire in them. He played many positions, but I think his best position was second base, as well as anybody at the time.

SPEAKER_00 4:01

He was the OG fashion shredder because now, like, pretty much anybody you see, like that's just standard fare. You look out, and that that's just like half the guy that was on a team at any given point. So shout out to Tito, the the OG, when it comes to the fashion accessories that we see today. So I'm still doing it. And still doing it. So, Shay, I do want to talk some Willie. I do have right here Willie Mays. Oh, not quite Adamus. I do have have the book right here, 24 Life Lessons, written by a certain friend of the show right here. But I think really quickly, let's let's eat our vegetables really quickly. Let's talk about the team. We don't got to talk about them a lot because when I was texting you, you know, about setting this up, you said, you know, it's not a lot to talk about. I said there's nothing to talk about. There's a little bit to talk about. There's a little bit that we can parse through. Uh they're 14 and 23, they're still last in the majors and everything that they've been last in. I think in actually the addition of run differential, I don't think they were last uh going into the Padre series. They took two out of three. They managed to not get swept, but they've lost eight of the last nine. Uh Bryce Eldridge is obviously up. Jesus Rodriguez is obviously up. Uh Bryce hasn't done a whole lot except drawing a walk and a hit. Jesus Rodriguez, though, has been a little bit of a spark. He got his first major league hit. RBI and Homer, an opposite field Homer on Tuesday, but only the 81st in uh Oracle Park history. And then he collected two more hits on Wednesday, played right field. He hadn't done that in the major of the minors, or he though he had done that in Winterball, although the biggest play of the game was the Ty France two-run triple that deflects off his glove. It was a tough play, but it was catchable. He did have to die for it, but he did make a lot of contact with the glove. It's not like it was a full extension there. So it was kind of a, I think Vitello said after the game, they were gonna have to put him out there at some point. There was gonna have to be a day one uh at some point, and unfortunately for Jesus, that day one uh happened to be the biggest play of the game, got a lot of action there. So we got Bryce, we got Jesus, we've got a 14-23 team that's just in tied for last place in the major Shay. Any thoughts overall? Anything different?

SPEAKER_01 6:17

Well, first of all, could you tell me? I mean, he he played right field for the first time since Winterball, like three or four years ago, and that was the only time he ever played right field. Well, that's what he said, and that's what that's what his stats say in Pro Bowl. So he's never played right field in the minor leagues, and he's been in the minor leagues quite a bit. And except for the except for maybe a dozen, couple dozen games in Winter Ball. So can you tell me why he didn't play right field in triple A in preparation for this?

SPEAKER_00 6:54

That is a great question. That that might be a question for Tony Matello pregame. I'm curious. I mean, he did play left field, and so I I did make this point. I think he was on the podcast, on the radio, I can't remember, but I think I remember saying, like, do we see a lineup where it's Jesus and left and Elliot and right? And like that made a little more sense to me because you know Elliot's at least kind of familiar with right field, and he it's it's not an easy right field, John Shea. You know, if we're talking about Willie Mays, it is a 24-foot wall, so it's a little different. And so that was when I saw him in an outfield position, I wasn't shocked. When I saw him in right field, I was kind of like, hmm, that's a little interesting.

SPEAKER_01 7:35

And they've hit a lot of people in left field, you know, from Michael Morris to to maybe Ishikawa. That's unfair for Travis, but um Pat Burrell, uh, you know, Barry Bonds in his later years when he wasn't moving as well as he did in the 90s. And it's a it's a place to put a guy who maybe isn't very familiar with the outfield or very mobile. And they put him in right field. I I think it was unfair to the kid, and it it cost him a game because maybe you know, a hunter pence or a Randy Wynn, somebody who's familiar with right field out there, uh Yastremsky would have would have made that catch and inning over a tie game. Let's keep going. But anyway, it's it it I just keep saying it. It all comes down to whether Devers and Adamus are going to wake up offensively. If they hit, this is a totally different team, and it hides all the blemishes that we can talk about forever, about whether it's defense or base running or just smart baseball or the lack of a closer, you know, all those things can just go away if these guys hit from day one and drove in runs and produced runs and you know put up uh crooked numbers in the innings that they hit. So suddenly instead of scoring two runs, you get five or six, and that's a big difference. And then it hides all these inefficiencies, but we haven't seen that. I mean, why they keep doing the same thing over and over, and I've written about this, and we you and I talked about this and the the mechanics, they just won't change, you know, and it's so drastic, so extreme from Devers' open stance at 62 degrees, the most open in baseball, to Adamus's uppercut, which is as extreme as Aaron Judge's, though Judge makes that happen. So, what do you see? You see fastballs down the middle to Devers, and you see fastballs eye level, shoulder level to Adamus, and both those guys swing through those pitches. And that's why this team doesn't have any walks. They're last in walks, historically bad drawing walks, because pitchers aren't pitching around them because pitchers don't fear them. And that's a major problem, right?

SPEAKER_00 9:51

I would say so. Although I will make a quick point on Devers to his credit, kind of recently, he is on a seven-game hitting streak and he did hit his third homer of the season on Wednesday. So maybe, just maybe, we're starting to see Rafi Devers starting to wake up. But it's still been rough for William Adamas, you know, the to the point you were making about the uppercut fastballs. It felt like in that Padre series, just anecdotally, not even looking at the numbers, like there was a lot of high fastballs that he was just swinging through. And then Matt Chapman's on a six-game hit list streak as well. His numbers have just cratered over the course of the last week. And yeah, to your point, like if this team is not even in the top half of offense, if they're just like 23rd, like if they're in the the the two-thirds, the upper two-thirds of offense, like this is probably at least a 500 team, and we just haven't seen it so far. And you know, that doesn't make any of the other problems less glaring, like Ryan Walker's allowed to run in three straight outings. Logan Webb, you know, last outing had the knee discomfort. Uh, didn't want to attribute it to that, but it was still his shortest outing of the year as well. And his ERA's at like 506. A lot of problems could go away with just an a below average offense because it's not even below average offense right now, it's just the worst.

SPEAKER_01 11:07

I just never seen anybody go game after game after game not drawing a walk. I mean, it's just part of the game. When you're a little league player, coach says what? Walks as good as a hit. And it's like, where did that not register? Because Adamas walked 80 times last year. Adams walked 112. That was a career high. I don't think you know, either has reached double figures this year, and it it's it's just the root of all their problems, is those two guys. And you can say Chapman, yeah. Chapman's kind of streaky, we've seen it. He goes through strikeout streaks and hitless streaks. His defense, um I mean, the other day it was kind of a bobble, but for the most part, after that first week when he had the issue with Casey Schmidt, and they weren't, you know, maybe uh eye to eye when in terms of uh throwing and catching the ball. I think he's done much better. But I I I don't I don't worry about his defense overall in a six-month season. Uh Adamas a little bit more so. He does things fundamentally that you just kind of wonder about. And Devers is still learning the position. Sometimes he's out of place. He has scooped a couple of balls, he's looked better than I anticipated, and maybe it's time to see what Bryce Eldridge can do at first base.

SPEAKER_00 12:29

Yeah, an interesting kind of wrinkle in Bryce's first three games is that they were all at designated hitter. Um, maybe Rafi has expressed a preference to play the field. He likes to be active, but you know, it was kind of an interesting thing when you know Bryce and Jesus came up. Uh, Tony had some very interesting comments. I think this is actually probably the most interesting thing from the last couple days, is he he effectively said in a lot of words that there's not gonna be as much coddling anymore. I think like to kind of cut through what he was saying, it's not gonna be the hey, like going to the veterans, like, hey, do you want to do this? Do you want to do that? It's gonna be more it's gonna be no, like, we need to do what we need to do to win baseball games, and that's why you saw Matt Chapman as cold as he's been sitting on Monday and like, yeah, sure, he was on the on-deck circle in the ninth inning, but that was the first game he didn't play, and I I think both of us were in agreement that if Luisa Rayas's uh left thumb hadn't been sore, we probably would have seen Adamus get a day off as well. And to the point about the walks, it it is interesting that you know, in the clubhouse we walk in and on the TVs, it you know, just big bold, you know, lettering, it says Giants, you know, 30th and on base percentage, 286 or whatever it was entering the series, and and also 23rd in walks per nine among the pitching staff. It's very clear messaging as to what they were what whoever was you know up to that. And then in Tuesday and Wednesday, they don't draw a single walk. So it's uh it's still a pre it's still a problem. Part of me wants to keep saying, I don't know if you feel this way, but it's like it part of me keeps thinking like it can't be like that bad this year. And I don't think it will be because there's too many guys that are too talented, but with every that game that stacks, it's like a little it's like the the anxiety of it kind of builds not just among like the fan base, but uh probably among them too. It's you gotta stack wins somehow. Now I'm not just talking about like winning the game, like winning at bats, and just right now it's it's been an uphill battle.

SPEAKER_01 14:32

Yeah, and it's unfair to the manager. I mean, Tony Vitello came into this, he he inherited this team. It's not like in college where he can recruit all the best players in the country to come to one of the premier uh universities on the baseball side in the country. You can't do that in the major leagues unless you're the Dodgers. And he's he's with a team that's been you know um pre-arranged and some add-ons. Uh, you know, he had a say in the coaching staff, but yeah, I'm not sure how much he was involved in the offseason acquisitions of players. It's not like he went out and got all the Tennessee guys. Um, so I yeah, I mean, it's so different because and now he's being picked on by by Hunter Wendelstadt and all these other umpires who are bad mouthing him because he's the college kid, as if you know Hunter Wendelstadt is like a great umpire. I mean, he missed that Elliott Ramos home run in Tampa, and then he starts ejecting people because they are telling him, hey, you missed it, buddy. So that's a deep-rooted problem with the umpire still, even in the ABS days. But anyway, guess who drew 100 walks and led the league in on base percentage at age 40 in 1971?

SPEAKER_00 15:56

Is it Willie?

unknown 15:58

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 15:59

Is that our transition to the Mr. Mays? Is that the transition right there? I want okay, I'll I'll make one quick point. I want to do one make one quick point that we'll we'll talk about uh the say hey kid. Uh to the point about Vitello. I I do I did make this point uh in the the story, the off-day story I did where like I don't want to say like Vitello's like completely blameless uh in the start either. You know, we talked about that doubleheader on Thursday where there was just a lot of really odd decisions there, like and then Wednesday as well, like Adrian Hauser is having by far his best start as a giant. Like it's been it was rough for him to start the season so much so that you know when they sent down Blade Tidwell as well as um Trevor McDonald to get stretched out and stay stretched out, you're thinking, like, if there's a guy to go in this rotation, it's Hauser, even with the two-year$22 million deal, it's probably early, but you know, that's where your mind starts going. And first six innings, like he's shoving, like it's his best start, allows a solo homer, and that was it. Seventh inning, Fernando Tatis Jr. reaches on an error by Chapman. And again, it's been rough for it's been Chapman overall has been fine. That first week was rough, but you know, that wasn't a great moment. And then at 74 pitches, Hauser is just done. And I asked after the game, like, why'd you take him out? And he said, and Vitello said, you know, we wanted to roll with our best guys. Maybe I think maybe they would have stuck with him if they were leading, but it was you know, like I understand, you know, I don't want to pretend like I know everything, I most definitely don't. And you know, there's a lot of these things are scripted now and matchup, but and sure, but there is you're gonna appreciate this, John. There is part of me that's like sometimes you just gotta roll with the guy that's like having a game. Sometimes he's having a game, and there's a mental part of it too. So I don't know. What did you before we get into May's last thing? What did what did you make of that decision in particular to lift Hauser at 74 pitches?

SPEAKER_01 17:52

Yeah, yeah. Sometimes you have to have a feel for the game. You know, we went from Gabe Kappler to Bob Melvin. We're thinking, okay, new school to old school, like far Han Zahidi and Gabe Kapler all by the book, pre-arranged, predetermined. It's kind of like how Dave Roberts was early in his career with the Dodgers and who he was abused for it because why are you taking out a guy who's throwing a no-hitter? Why are you taking out a guy who's got such rhythm? It cost him in the World Series for a game, I think, against Tampa Bay. And uh anyway, so you you you fast forward to now and you say, Well, this guy kind of we heard from him in spring training, and he was like down the middle. Yeah, there's analytics, yeah, there's a feel for the game. So you kind of thought he was balanced in that regard, and I still think he is, and maybe he was just shooting from the hip and thought, hey, you know what? Don't want to have this guy face him third time around as much. And uh, I know that he has had some bad outings, so let's take him out and use that momentum for his next start, not knowing you know what the bullpen was gonna do or how the game was going to play out. So, I mean, I I I don't know if I could, in retrospect, you know, totally blame him because the other players got to pick it up. I mean, they got to score more runs, they got to keep runs off the board on the other side. And I I think like like um like the rest of the team, you know, he's being exposed because the players aren't stepping up and doing what they're supposed to do and put up numbers like they have been on baseball reference or on the back of their baseball card. And so he's feeling the heat, Posey's feeling the heat. And I think you and I came into this season saying, you know, this is at least a 500 team because look at all the players at every position, they have a track record. There's there wasn't like a rookie, there's no Bryce Eldridge. Well, what could he do? It's for every position, what has he done? And now it's about repeating, and it just hasn't happened except for Luisa Rice, and that's across the board. And we haven't even seen uh the new center fielder. Um, we've seen almost too much of the first baseman and shortstop because they're they won't come out of the lineup. And the catcher is another story. Who is the starting catcher on this team? I have no idea. Uh Bailey, after three days off, struck out a couple times and rolled one over. And it's like, okay, if you're getting zero out of the catcher spot, you know, why not try Rodriguez on an everyday basis behind the plate? And by the way, Bailey has options. Do you actually send him to AAA to get his bat right? A two-time gold glover, supposedly the best defensive catcher in baseball, though the ABS numbers this year don't necessarily show that. And the eye test by some fans wonder why that label is being thrown out there because sometimes funky things happen. But still, pitchers love to throw to him. Webb loves to throw to him. It was kind of unique not to see him the other day um throw to somebody else, except you know, beyond uh beyond Bailey. So, I mean, they have three catchers, and the Giants never have three catchers on the roster, but obviously Jesus plays other positions, maybe not as well as as others, but I I I think he was he he was impressive his first day here with McDonald on the mount. They had uh some familiar um you know history there because they worked together in triple A. So I was really impressed that first day when he when he caught. But yeah, I'm not sure about putting him out in right field. So maybe you just kind of roll with Rodriguez behind the plate. You agree or disagree?

SPEAKER_00 21:40

I'll point to this. I think it was during it was a Tuesday pregame I asked Vitello, just straight up, Do you have an everyday catcher?

SPEAKER_01 21:50

Right?

SPEAKER_00 21:51

And he spoke so spoke for about a minute and a half and he never said the word yes or no. And he kinda talked about it post game that same day too, and still like I I don't think there is an everyday catcher right now. And maybe we see ba I I don't know who's gonna catch tonight. I I honestly have no idea. And there is an interesting decision. You mentioned the options point coming up because Daniel Susak started a rehab assignment yesterday. He was obviously hitting well. And you know, the the clock's kind of ticking on when the Giants have to make this decision. It's like, do you do you option Rodriguez and bring Susak back up? But you can't maybe option Rodriguez now. Like, do you DFA Haas? But like Haas is also a veteran. You know, I can imagine like the pitcher's like throwing to him as well. He can also play the outfield. You can't put Susac in triple A because he's a Rule 5 guy. And so I I do think if they wanted to push that, like another big there's there's multiple big red buttons that they could push. I think that's another one that they could push is you know, Patrick Bailey's OPS is 396 right now. For all the defensive value, it's kind of like if you do like an XY axis and it's just like a diagonal line, at some point, like there does become a point where for all the defensive value, it's just it doesn't matter if your OPS starts with a three. And you know, I I don't want to be so harsh as to say automatic out, but he did it, it wasn't three competitive at bats on Wednesday. So we'll I don't know like when Sioux Sachs Rehab assignment's gonna be up, but maybe it's that that series in LA. So maybe in LA we have a very interesting decision on our hands. All right, Shay. I I say we're gonna talk for like 10 minutes about the actual team. We talked for like 20. Let's let's talk about the let's talk about the the the late great Willie Mays here. And I want to talk about the the book as well for you, and we can use that as kind of a vessel to get into talking about Mays as a whole. But you've obviously known Willie for you know quite some time, you know, prior to his passing, obviously. And I just want to know, like, how did this book come about? How did you approach him about it? Was it something that he was initially open to doing, or did you have to take it take some prodding? Like, what was the process of having this thing all come together?

SPEAKER_01 24:00

Well, I grew up here, so I watched him in his final years of his career, late 60s, early 70s. And you know, he was he was the god, right? I mean, they had a great team, they had the best record in the 60s of anyone in baseball. Marischal had the best record. They only went to the World Series once and lost to the Yankees in seven games. But Mays was traded in May of 72 to the Mets, and then he went into the Hall of Fame in 79, and about five minutes later, Bowie Kuhn, the commissioner of baseball, then threw him out of the game because of his association with casinos, did the same with Mickey Mannell. And these are guys who didn't have big pensions and they hardly made any money. I mean, Mays topped out at 165,000, and Mannel was right about there. And all he did was, you know, play golf, sign autographs.

SPEAKER_00 24:49

Can we point out the irony of that really quick based off just the landscape of all the gambling? I just want to point that out. Keep keeping continue.

SPEAKER_01 24:56

I mean, every ballpark has you know, outside of California has a basically uh uh you know a betting line right outside where you can place bets. And anyway, uh maybe that's coming to California. I hope not. Hope not. You know, you go to Wrigley Field, you go to Arizona, and you know, there's there's you know sports bets right outside. Anyway, so in uh 84, Peter Ubroth was the commissioner uh who took over after he worked the LA Olympics, he was kind of the executive director of the LA Olympics, and then took over as commissioner in um right after that. And the first thing he did was bring back maze and mantle. So in 1986, Bob Lurie and Al Rosen brought Mays back to the Giants, right? So um, and this so he was there for spring training, he was there in the clubhouse, and I came back to the bay after covering some padres in the 80s. So I came back to the bay in 88. I was a beat writer, and Mays was always around, which I just thought was amazing. And I was the kid and in the back of the scrums, listening and watching and not saying a word, and not like me. You dominate every scrum, so um, and then you know, I it's just uh I started writing about him, and you know, for whatever reason he appreciated because he kept talking to me, and um, then in about 2000, when I was over at the examiner by then, you know, I had moved to the Oakland Tribune and then the examiner, and then they merged with the Chronicle in 2000. I became national baseball writer, and then I that allowed me to step back even further and um, you know, speak to those guys more, you know, big picture pieces, whatever, step back pieces, and you know, got to know them a little bit more. In about 2005, I actually asked him, I said, Hey, hey, Willie, uh, what about a book project? And you know, he didn't say yes or no, but he said, I would like to see this in classrooms. I guess that was a yes. So I kind of put everything in motion and and knew that this was going to be an inspirational book, maybe geared toward young adults, but really for all ages, because who can't get inspired by Willie if you're 90 or nine? And um, so not until about 2018 did it really contractually reach fruition. But in those years, I talked to a lot of older people, whether it was Alvin Dark or Ernie Banks, guys who were up there in age, and I talked to them on the premise that there might be a book. And if there is, I've got to have Alvin Dark in there because he was Willie's teammate in New York. He was Willie's manager in the early 60s, and he kind of helped divide the clubhouse with his uh racist words and actions, telling the Spanish speakers, don't speak Spanish in my clubhouse, you got to speak English. And there were three LU brothers, and like Felipe once told me, what am I gonna tell my dad that I'm we're told that we can't even speak Spanish uh among the brothers in the clubhouse? So it's kind of ridiculous. And there was a mutiny and Cepeda and McCovey, a lot of these guys were just gonna walk away in 1964, and Mays gathered everybody in his Pittsburgh uh hotel room when the team was there and said, Hey, don't play for the manager, play for us, play for the team, play for the fans. Because back then, World Series bonus money was huge, it was significant, unlike now. So, anyway, um the book came out in 2020, and uh you know, by then I had talked to 200 interviews I did. I spent uh uh uh more than 100 hours with Willie for the sake of the book, whether it was at his home or in the suite at the ballpark or at different functions. Um, you know, just we went to Stanford Hospital where this stuff never came out, where he visited, you know, kids uh you know with cancer. So it was it's just uh um he went to different hospitals, always always with kids. I mean, he he never had one of his own. They adopted Michael, who's who's now late 60s. Um, you know, I think they they tried Willie and May Mays, the love of his life, uh, who passed about 10 years ago, um you know, before Willie. But anyway, all all those all those memories and all those accomplishments and uh going back and speaking with his Negro League's teammates, his childhood buddies, 30 Hall of Famers, everybody had a Willie May story. Unlike when you and I might call somebody for a regular story, if we hit 500 of five out of the 10 people call back and enter, you know, can conduct an interview with us, you know, that's that's a great day or a great week. But for Mays, you know, I pretty much batted a thousand. And that included, I put in calls to George W. Bush and Bill Clinton, and I got uh folks on the Obama team. And you know, I spent 40 minutes with these presidents talking about baseball and talking about Willie Mays. And it was it was just an amazing experience. Hank Aaron for another half hour, Vince Gully. Um I mean, I can go up and down the list of who's who of baseball immortals because everybody had a May story. So I would I would gather this information from those interviews, bring them back to Willie, put it on a T for Willie, and he hit it out of the park with his own observations, his own memories. And, you know, from there the book evolved with zero bibliography. There was no words from this book that was used, you know, whether it's a quote or whatever, from another book or a magazine or a documentary. So it's all fresh, it's all new, uh genuine information. And, you know, for that I was proud. I was saying, hey, Willie, this has got to be different from any other thing you've done. So let's go about it. We're gonna take our time, we're gonna talk to everybody. And it's a book I can't do now because we've lost so many people since that book has come out, so many legends that are quoted in the book. But yeah, just to have um, you know, one of my favorite moments was going back to Birmingham for a week and spending time with Bill Greason. And people say, Well, who's Bill Greason? Bill Greason is the oldest living major league ball player, he's 102. He's 101, he'll be 102 in September. And he was Willie's teammate on the 1948 Birmingham Black Barons. Both were rookies, but Willie was 17, a sophomore in high school, and Greesson had already come back after fighting in the Battle of Iwo Jima in World War II. So he is an American hero three times over, from a war hero to the first pitcher who the first black pitcher ever on the St. Louis Cardinals years before Bob Gibson. And then for the last 55 years, he's been a minister at his beloved Bethel Community Church in Birmingham. So anyway, um it was like an assignment of a lifetime to track what Willie did in his entire life and his entire career, and to tell those stories of inspiration, each chapter, each of the 24 chapters with a life lesson. And then we just kind of built the storytelling from from there. So it was really an honor and an amazing time in my life to to be part of who Willie Mays was and to share the stories with the world on who Willie Mays was and always will be.

SPEAKER_00 32:50

Yeah, I think I'll it came out in 2020. I don't think I read it until like last year, but it was one of those books where like the second I started reading it, just instant like it was done in less than a week, which is saying something, John Shea, because you know my generation can't read. Um what do you think over the course of you know, because it was a lot of interviews, and you would obviously have known Willie for quite some time before, as you mentioned, this book contractually started to come into motion. Just from the start of whether you want to call the official start of it when you asked him or when things started getting into motion. What is what do you think you learned the most about Willie that maybe you had kind of known or maybe just didn't know at all about him during this process? Because you did mention like pretty much everybody has a Willie Mays story.

SPEAKER_01 33:42

Well, I think the book dispels the myth that Willie Mays did not do enough for the black cause, enough for African Americans in the 60s and into the 70s, like a Jackie Robinson did. And Jackie Robinson came out in a uh book in 1964, in which uh he interviewed um many blacks, uh whites, uh Latinos to tell their story um, you know, post-integration and the trials and tribulations they had, um, you know, with the different races in the clubhouse and on the field and in the game and off the field. And so Jackie took some jabs at Willie for not being part of that book. And therefore, you know, who's this guy in this luxurious San Francisco home, having come from the slums of Birmingham, not to contribute to my book. So he really went hard in his introduction after Willie Mays. So I always thought that you know, Willie Mays didn't say things, didn't do things to maybe help with social issues. I just thought that was a fact. And it's always been written, it's always been said, and it's always you know been been been believed, you know, like Hank Aaron maybe wasn't that guy until after his playing days, but Willie was never like that. They said, So, with interviews, Maury Wills, Reggie Jackson, Joe Morgan, Willie McCovey, you know, Felipe. I asked them, is it true? And they said, absolutely not. And here's what Willie did for me. Here's what Willie did for his teammates uh on the road and in the clubhouse. He he just didn't like march or preach or get up on a soapbox. He basically did things behind the scenes to make the game better, to make his teammates better, and to make maybe the next generation of minorities come up and feel more secure about themselves, feel like you know they want to leave the game better than they entered it, all those things. And and that's all in chapter 17. And I was kind of proud to know that on the big screen, like two years later in 2022, the HBO documentary came out and was premiered at a theater in San Francisco, the um, you know, say hey, Willie Mace. And a lot of that film was based off chapter 17 on how much Willie did do for the cause for America, for uh race relations, uh social uh justice, everything like that. So there's a lot of examples in there. At the time that he tried to move into his house in late 57 because the giants were moving from New York to San Francisco, and he tried to buy this house in a prestigious white-only neighborhood. It overlooked the water, it was you know, first, second, third floor, it was gorgeous on a hill. And the neighbors and the realtor said, No, you can't buy this house. So Willie just didn't walk away. In fact, the mayor, Christopher, came in and he said, Hey, you could stay in my house, you could stay in my neighborhood until you find somewhere else. He said, No, I'm gonna buy this house. And then, you know, it became a national story, and the realtor and the neighbors softened and they said, You know, how stupid are you, you know, not to allow Willie Mays in your neighborhood to begin with. So, anyway, Willie did it not only for himself and his wife at the time, but for the next minority guys who aren't Willie Mays who will have no power or authority to say, no, I want to buy this house, screw you. So that kind of opened the door and changed laws in San Francisco and California. So, anyway, there are a lot of examples. And probably the one thing that really hit me hard was when I was talking to him about moving from the Negro leagues in 1950, the Giants signed him after a senior year in high school. So, an all-black league, the Giants signed him, sent him to the Trenton Giants of the Interstate B League. Not one minority in the entire league except for Willie Mays. So, this is three years after Jackie heard all that nonsense in 47. Now we're in 50, and Willie's hearing a lot of the same stuff. It wasn't as publicized because that was Jackie who was already in the big leagues, and this is Willie down there in you know uh mid-range uh minor league ball, and there were a million minor league teams at the time. So so what? Well, he told me sitting down, it's just a moment I'll never forget when I said how tough was that. He said it was so tough for him because he heard the insults on every, you know, every time they hit the road, especially in for in the uh playing against the southern teams, that he was ready to quit the game, just walk away, go back to Birmingham, work in the mills like his dad, maybe play some more Negro League baseball games, and just hang around Birmingham in his hometown of Fairfield. I said, What? I mean, it was this close to quitting the game. And imagine baseball, imagine our life without Willie Mays. So, so luckily he didn't let the bigots win. He overcame all the crap and just said, I'm moving on, I'm gonna do this for myself, I'm just gonna do it for everybody. Unfortunately, and luckily for all of us, you know, he became the Willie Mays we all know and love.

SPEAKER_00 39:34

I can't imagine that alternative reality. It's just like it's too much to bear. And I think I've told you this story before, but my my number growing up was always 24 because I was born on October 24th. And, you know, obviously, you know, it's it's Willie. You think of Willie and you think of Griffey. And I remember one time I had a jersey with De Los Santos on the back. And it it was, you know, back when I was back when I was a young pup, when I was still rooting for the team, affiliation's long gone, fandoms long gone, but it was a Giants jersey, and you know, somebody asked, like, who is del who is 24 De Los Santos? And somebody and my mom said that's actually Maze in Spanish. But it it's obviously not. But yeah, I I just can't like I can't even conceive like what the game of baseball would look like without Willie May's like, who among us hasn't? I think Vitello said this himself, like trying to do the the basket catch. Who among us hasn't tried to do that at least once? You you obviously mentioned you've there's so many interviews you've done for this book. You talk with presidents, you've talked with some of the most impactful Negro League players of their generation. Is there a favorite, like one in particular, favorite interview or even a favorite session that you had with Willie himself? Like I would imagine it's more akin to like a top four than it is like a definitive one, but like is there any one like as we're sitting here right now that like really resonates, sticks out to you as far as most impactful, most fun, anything like that?

SPEAKER_01 41:10

Well, talking to the president was surreal. I mean, I was sitting at this desk with a you know about three or four tape recorders playing it just so I couldn't rely on one. It was that kind of interview. And yeah, I probably broke the law by not telling him I was interviewing him, but don't don't uh don't show this on your podcast. The the Statue of Limitations probably up. I think they'll be okay with it anyways. But but Clinton, I mean, the the difference between those two presidents is as amazing as you might consider. Like one guy, it's like you gotta, you know, for the most one of the most brilliant minds in the world, Clinton, and then and then Bush is kind of the guy you're you know having a beer with at the end of the bar. Um not that there's anything wrong with that, because both were amazing. And you know, Bill Clinton's line, you know, Willie Mays makes it absurd to be a racist, just kind of blew me away. And as soon as he told me that, I made sure that chapter 17, The Absurdity of Racism, was going to be the title, and um, he was a golf partner with them, and then and then Bush, you know, he was owner of the Texas Rangers, his dad played at Yale and met Babe Ruth. There's this famous photograph because Ruth came by the campus and posed with the team captain who was George W. Bush's dad, also president. And so Bush told me about, you know, when I told him about Willie learning about life while playing catch with his dad, Willie Howard May Sr., uh, otherwise known as Kat, uh, George W. told me that it reminded him of playing catch in his backyard with his old man in Midland when he was playing Little League. And he wasn't the ball player that his dad was. Um, he tried to play in college, but but but wasn't able to. Um, so anyway, but beyond that, I would say Felipe Alu. Felipe Alu, I I think I interviewed three different times and each like an hour long. I'm I'm so glad that Peter Carasotis wrote a book on Felipe that everybody should buy. Um, because he he had a he's had an amazing life and he's still going strong. And you know, he was there for every bit of Alvin Dark and Willie Mays. And the great thing about Felipe is he played six years with Mays, and he told me because of the words he used and the statements he gave about trying to change course, not only in the clubhouse, but with race race relations around baseball. He said that's why the Giants traded me to uh the Braves. So we went from six years with Mays to six years as Hank Aaron's sidekick. So I said, okay, who's the better player? And he said, Hank was a better hitter, Willie was the better player. I said, Okay, that's fair. Right? I mean, Hank crushed the ball. Willie did it all. And you know, Hank would hit the ball, you know, 20 rows deep, and Mays would hit hit him one row deep. And uh, you know with Aaron, here's a funny story. I you probably get the late in the process of the book, I went to Willie and I said, I can't get Hank. Hank's not available. I can't write this book without a chapter of you and Hank. He said, What do you mean? He says, Well, I'm going through his handlers, his advisors, and they they're all no people. No, no, no, no, no. He said, You got his number? I said, Well, yeah, but I'm trying to go through the proper channels. Let's give him a call. I said, Uh I'm gonna, I'm gonna said, okay. So we call, Willie calls, and uh Hank's wife, uh Billy picks up and goes, Hello? Says, hi, this is Willie Mays. Is Hank there? And she's all what said this is Willie Mays. Is Hank there? And this is like real slow, dot dot dot before every statement. Willie Mays. This is funny. He says, Yeah, Willie. M-A-Y. Willie Mays is spelling his name to Hank Aaron's wife because Hank Aaron's wife can't believe that Willie Mays is called, and she's oh hold on, and like a few minutes pass, and then finally you hear this is Hank. And remember, Willie's three years older than Hank, arrived in the bigs three years before Hank, retired three years before Hank. Otherwise, you know, the parallel universes of two dudes from the same state, from the same time, from the same Negro leagues is just astounding. And everyone tried to make that a rivalry. You know, the the the media said, okay, it's Mays versus Aaron. They don't like each other, and um, they're going after Babe Ruth's record. And for most of Mays's career, he was the guy who was going to break Mays's uh Babe's record. And and remember, uh, you know, Hank played in Milwaukee, he played in Atlanta, the launching pad, maybe a lot more homer friendly than the polo grounds, where it's 482 to center field, or candlestick with uh 100 mile per hour gusts of wind. Um, yet Mays hit 660 and spent two years in the military. It's not the ballparks because he always adjusted the ballparks. He could go down left field line or right field line at the polo grounds, and a candlestick he used that jet stream to go out to right center, so he couldn't pull a high fly ball. He had to hit a line drive through that wind to get it over the fence and candlestick. So he didn't complain about it, but he did say, Hey, if I wasn't in the military, you know, maybe I do break Babe record Babe's record first. And I look back and I said, okay, if he missed those two years, let's average out what he did in the first two years after uh coming back from the military. He had 90 home runs in his first two years after so if you had 90, easy 700, you know, uh if you did that again, you know, in those two years, but anyway, you know, a lot of what ifs, and he never he never complained about it, never said, you know, I I was um I was cheated. I mean, I kept asking him one day, and he said, John, what's wrong with 660? I said, Yeah, you're right. You're darn right. But uh, yeah, Felipe was amazing. Um, just uh amazing that uh so many people wanted to share their tales uh about the great maze. And um, like I said, and then I brought it all back to Willie, and then we we we put together this book that I don't think you'll ever see in another library or bookstore, in that all his words are bold-faced, and his words are on every page, and it was up to me to kind of set the tone for all his quotes leading up to you know his words in every chapter. So his words started off every chapter, ended every chapter, and in between we just kind of had a give and take. Like you and I would be talking baseball at a bar, and you know, here comes uh Bill Greason, here comes Philippe Alu, here comes Bill Clinton to chime in on storytelling.

SPEAKER_00 48:38

Yeah, one it's it it's funny you mentioned the only 660. It's uh another part of it is the only two MVPs, which obviously war was not a thing uh during Maze's heyday, but if you just uh base it off how many times, I think this this is in your book too. It's if you just base it off how many times he led not even the National League, but the entire majors in war, that's probably like seven or eight MVPs, and you know, it's kind of not as similar one-to-one, but it's always funny how like Joe Morgan was not like a he's not a Saber Magics guy, but you look at the Sabermetrics and it's like nah, he probably should have had like a couple more MVPs on his mouth. So kind of same thing there.

SPEAKER_01 49:20

And and and Mays had yeah, you how how how rare is a 10 war season? Extremely rare, extremely rare. And he had like what four of them? Yeah, maybe judge Harper did it once, but uh since 2000, you hardly have seen any beyond bonds and trout for position players in a seven-year span. He averaged 10 war season plus over seven years in the 60s. His average was 10 war seasons. So yeah, I I talked to Eno Serras, our friend from The Athletic, who who breaks down friend of the program, friend of the program, and um, yeah, I I he's quoted in the book as saying he he should have had a lot more MVPs, for example, 1962. Maze has just the the thing, the problem with Mays was like Michael Jordan. Every year was just outstanding, it was pretty much the same. It was a 40 homers, 100 Steels, uh, 100 RBIs. He led the league in steals four times consecutively, in fact. Um, but voters probably were saying, okay, that's enough of Mays. Who else can we look at? Like, you don't want to vote for LeBron every year. Who else can we look at, right? Who's who's the trendy pick? Well, in 1962, Maury Wills stole a hundred bags. First time anyone's ever done that. Giants win the pennant. Mays has this outstanding season, but but Maury Wills won the won the MVP. And I, you know, I think they scored the same amount of runs. Uh Mays had like a hundred more RBIs, and the OPS was off the up to the moon. So was the war that year. But yeah, there were a lot of years where you look at the MVP, say, how did he win it? But that was just the time. I mean, how we value numbers now, how we value players now, he absolutely would have won as many or more uh MVPs as Barry Bonds.

SPEAKER_00 51:10

I think it would have been fun to have some. If you could just drop Willie Mays into the present day and everything that he does, and you just replicate his production, I think we would have like a lot of very fun discussions of Willie Mays versus Shoe Heotani. That's just that's just what's coming to mind for me. Shea, I'm sure we could talk here for hours just about Willie and just your favorite memories and just honestly at the ballpark tonight, we might just pull up YouTube and watch some old highlights, but you know, I think we gotta that we gotta cut it off at some point, or else everyone's gonna be like, dude, what the we're gonna be talking into the Pirates game tonight. Um, I think we know where you we can find your work. Anything you want to plug in particular? I know you did the story with uh Daniel Lurie uh today. What do you want to plug, Shay?

SPEAKER_01 51:49

Yeah, I did this morning at the sfstandard.com. We have a story. Uh I spent Monday's game with Daniel Lurie, and by the way, they played nine games, uh, lost eight of them. And the one game that they won, I spent the game with Daniel Lurie, watching the game from the Willie McCovey booth along Broadcast Row, right above our spot in the press box. And it was fabulous. I mean, he really stunned me with his knowledge of the Giants and Bay Area sports. He was an A's fan because his mother married into the Haas family, Peter Haas, who's the younger brother of uh Walter Haas Jr., who owned that team and kind of saved the team, bought it from Finn Finley, uh the Billy Ball era, the Bash Brother uh era. And uh so he was a child during those years, and naturally he gravitated to the Coliseum more than candlestick. But um just to be fair, you know, he went off to college, went to Duke, then came back, went to Cal, early 2000s. That's you know, by the by then his family no longer owned the A's and he was living in the city, he's going to Cal, getting his masters, and at that point he converted, you know, at the new ballpark with Bonds into a diehard Giants fan. So, so it kind of transitions in the story how he went from A's to Giants, but he you know, he knows all things Warriors, he knows all things 49ers, he's got a stake in Bay uh FC, and um so he he really appreciates um and acknowledges his past, his family, his roots. And I mentioned in the story, and I think I told him, I think I said the city is having a better year than the team. What's up with that? Because he his quote was how the Giants go, so goes San Francisco. And we were we remember 10, 12, and 14 how vibrant and electric and alive the city was during those championship runs with Posey and everybody else, Lindsacum, Baumgartner, Pablo. And you know, we haven't seen one playoff appearance in what the last nine years. Um, winning records are not the norm anymore, and so I kind of drew the parallel to Daniel Lurie and Buster Posey in that both are trying to revive what they're overseeing, reviving the Giants, reviving the city. And I think Lurie is a little bit ahead of Buster Posey. But I told him that he said, Hey, it's early. You know, we it the city is doing well, the city would be much better if the Giants are in first place, but it's early and the Giants could still do it. So, anyway, he's optimistic and it was fun. It's just fun to talk ball with a guy who probably has too many meetings and and budget hearings and all this other nonsense. So it was like a great diversion for him to get away and talk ball. And I enjoyed uh I enjoyed being there with him.

SPEAKER_00 54:50

I'm sure you enjoy talking ball with Daniel and John Shea. I always enjoy talking ball with you. Thanks for coming on, and I'll see you in the next one. See you at the ball game.