Loving feeling: The night Mays made a New York crowd shed tears
Some 26 years ago, somebody in the New York chapter of the Baseball Writers Association of America — the organization that annually presents Most Valuable Player, Rookie of the Year, Manager of the Year, Cy Young and other awards — came up with the idea to add another trophy to its formidable roster.
The reason, according to Claire Smith, former New York Times national baseball columnist and chair of the BBWAA’s New York chapter at the time, “our chapter sought to avoid cancellation of the banquet in the aftermath of the work stoppage that had killed the World Series the previous October.
“I thought of a way we might save the event, suggesting that we fill the dais with living legends, starting with Willie, Mickey and The Duke. The drawing card for the three would be a new chapter prize named for the
“ExDodgers pitcher Joe Black told me that when he ran into Willie at the airport the following day, he asked Willie if he was dying. That’s how much Willie opened up in a way most on the dais said they’d never seen before.”
Claire Smith, a member of the writers’ wing of the Baseball Hall of Fame
three stars who roamed center field during the golden era of baseball in NYC. We highlighted how they were and always will be inextricably linked.
“When all three agreed to attend, we had a coup, for it was the first time Willie, Mickey and ‘The Duke’ would appear together in one place other than AllStar games.”
The three legendary Hall of Fame center fielders toiled within 17 miles of each other in New York for almost seven seasons in the 1950s: The Giants’ Willie Mays, the Yankees’ Mickey Mantle and the Dodgers’ Duke Snider. Arguments about who was the best raged on stoops and sandlots all across metropolitan New York.
And that’s how Mays, Mantle and Snider came to be on the dais of the BBWAA Awards gala in a packed Manhattan hotel ballroom that Sunday evening in 1995, nearly three decades since they last played against each other.
The annual blacktie affair, held the Sunday before the Super Bowl, was always among the hottest tickets in town, but the reunion of the three superstar centerfielders jacked the anticipation and excitement to extraordinary heights. Plus, this was going to be Mantle’s first public appearance since he checked into the Betty Ford Clinic a year earlier.
As planned, Snider was the first of the three to speak.
“I remember him being eloquent and appreciative of being there with his two fellow Hall of Famers,” recalls Smith, who emceed the event.
Generous applause ensued but, really, most everybody was waiting to hear from “The Mick.”
Then Willie stepped up to the microphone.
He opened by saying people always asked him how he wanted to be remembered. His usual response, he said, had always been that winning two MVP awards is nice, but there’s a new MVP every year. Hitting 660 home runs is nice, too, but somebody is sure to top that.
But, he went on, this award, does it. He called it the perfect way to be remembered, especially with Mick and Duke and especially in New York City. This award, he explained, meant the three of them will always be here together, forever, “even after we’re gone.”
By now, there wasn’t a sound to be heard. Members of the audience darted looks at tablemates and friends in the crowd. They had never heard Willie Mays talk like this, with so much meaning, so much passion. Throughout the room, many napkins and handkerchiefs dabbed at corners of eyes. Even the waiters and busboys stood in rapt silence.
“He was tearful and so very appreciative,” said Smith, who said she’ll never forget seeing Willie’s tears roll off his cheeks. “He told the crowd he’d watched as other awards were named for Hank (Aaron), Roberto (Clemente), etc., but didn’t think one would ever be named for him. He said he now knew that he was loved, something he always doubted.
“The audience, many crying along with him, was aghast. Did he really think he was not loved?”
Mays continued, saying that people didn’t realize what being back in New York City meant to him. He recounted coming to
New York in 1951, a young man from Alabama, who didn’t know anybody, yet the entire city made him, a stranger, feel right at home.
You thought the ending of “Field of Dreams” stirred emotions? Or that there’s no crying in baseball? Willie had both beat.
Willie then told the audience he was going to tell them something that only his wife and his attorney knew: That upon his death, half of his ashes are to be scattered over New York City and the other half over San Francisco, the two cities that embraced him and made him feel at home.
The crowd erupted in a raucous standing ovation, roars emanating from each table because, believe me, it’s not easy wiping away tears and applauding loudly at the same time, so sometimes only yells and screams will do.
“I could not believe what I was seeing, nor what I’d just heard about perhaps the most beloved living legend feeling so uncertain about his place in the pantheon,” said Smith, a member of the writers’ wing of the Baseball Hall of Fame since 2017. “How surprising was all this? ExDodgers pitcher Joe Black told me that when he ran into Willie at the airport the following day, he asked Willie if he was dying. That’s how much Willie opened up in a way most on the dais said they’d never seen before.”
Then Mantle almost sheepishly approached the microphone for the most anticlimactic climax in award history.
“I always swore that following Roger (Maris) in the batting order was the toughest thing I ever had to do in baseball,” he said. “Until just now.”
A few moments later, Mickey made Willie cry, again. He said he’d been asked countless times who was the best when all three ruled center field in the same city, and owned center stage in Series after Series.
“Mickey turned to Willie and said, ‘You were the best,’ bringing down the house,” Smith remembers. “He then said to Duke, ‘I don’t mind being tied for second with you.’ ”
The three would never appear together, again. In fact, it was Mickey’s final public appearance; he died that summer shortly after liver replacement surgery.
As big a Mantle fan as I was, I can’t remember a single thing he said beyond that. I’ll bet nobody else can, either, because, you see, once again, Willie Mays was the best.