PETE ROSE REMEMBERS WILLIE MAYS

The guys talk to the baseball legend of his experiences of the late Hall of Famer Willie Mays. 

Episode Transcript

(00:00):
Another legend, joins us on thephone to discuss Willie Mays's life. Het
Rose, my first manager in theMajor leagues. One of the greatest baseball
players ever to play in the majorleagues. You got to see Willie after
you came into the major leagues nineteensixty five, when he was the most
valuable player. When did you startto know how good Willie Mays was in
your life? When I was abouttwelve or thirteen growing up the Cincematic,

(00:25):
I mean, Willie was always justa great player, a great player to
watch. Then when I become abig leaguer, Willy was such a nice
guy to young players. He wantedall the young players to feel at home
when they played the game of baseball. And of course I started making All
Star Games and was on the sameteam with Willie, which he even made

(00:49):
it, you know, even biggerand better because he was such a personality.
I mean, we all know hewas a great player, but he
was always smiling, all happy tobe on the field, be in uniform,
and those are the kind of thingsI'll remember, but you know,
but we called him buck buck Mays, That's what we called him. And

(01:11):
then he was such a good playerfor such a long period of time,
and everyone liked Willie because the typeof guy he was. He just was
an aggressive, great, clustling typeyoung player that becomes one of the greatest
that's not the greatest of all time. When you talk about the greatest of
all time, you got to mentionWillie and you got to mention Babe Route.

(01:36):
Those are the two names to cometo me. And of course then
you got Hank Aaron Uh, youknow, is the show in that in
that group. So I got toplay Willy and Henry Uh, you know
the same time a lot of timesat the All Star Game, and they
were they were like the same typepeople. They just although Willie was more

(01:57):
outgoing, you know, he wasmore outgoing with his teammates, especially the
young teammates, because he made usall feel like we've belonged there. And
someone that has that ability to dothat, you got to really take your
hat off to it. What weresome of the things that you can remember,

(02:20):
and you know, because he wasgreat at everything and every attribute of
baseball, but what was something like, man, this guy's better at that
than anyone else to do it.I think one thing that he was that
he never gets credit for he wasa base He was a great base runner,
not base steeler. He could steala base stuo. But he was
one of those guys that never gotthrown at his third in Indianning, never

(02:44):
got thrown out his second to startthe ending. Those type of guys.
So fundamentally, Willie Mays was reallya sound baseball player, especially when they
come to run a basis talking toPete Rose, one of the greatest baseball
players ever to play in his era, and talking about Willie May's one of
the greatest baseball players of play,won twelve Gold Gloves. Defensively, was

(03:07):
he a shallow center fielder? Imean we remember him for the catch in
the World Series, but you playedagainst him so many times day to day
and things like that, and knowingyou trying to probably hit it away from
Willie Mays because you didn't want himto rob you of hits and doubles and
things like that. What do youremember about where will he played in the
field? Well, I played shallowbecause he was such a good outset of

(03:29):
going back on the ball, justlike the one we're talking about the catch.
I mean, he seemed like hewas running for two minutes to get
to that ball and it was straightover. But don't forget the polo grounds.
I think that's where it was.It was about four hundred and seventy
five feet to straight away center field. So Willie, Willie hid a lot
of space. You know, hewas kind of confined at Candlestick Park,

(03:52):
you know, because he couldn't reallyshow his defense off because anything over his
head usually went out of a ballpark. So you know, you play according
as the type of field you're playingat. And Willie was great at playing
shallow, taking hits away from youat granted, going backward the fall taking
hits away from you. So Fitcher'shad love having Willie Mays on his ball

(04:16):
club playing center field. Was thereanything about him going from New York to
San Francisco? Just east coast towest coast? It felt like nothing really
changed in his game. It didn'treally bother him. But do you have
a different perspective of house? Citieswere different. I didn't know Willie when
he was playing in New York withthe Giants. I just met Willie from

(04:38):
the Channel Sick part days. Icome up in sixty three, and I
remember when I first met him.I was in all and I'm just a
kid, maybe twenty one, twentytwo years old, and I said,
mister Maid, it's nice to meetyou. He said, mister Mays,
He said, that was my dad. I'm Willie. From that time on.
From that time on, he treatingme like one of the guys.

(05:00):
He treated all the young players withrespect, and he was always trying to
help young players become better players.That was as love for the sports,
you know. He wanted everybody tobe as good as they possibly could be.
And any time he could give youa chip or so, because in
those days we always talked around thebatting case before their frantonizing rules came out.

(05:24):
And will he be out there everyday during batting practice pretty opposition,
just watching and then talking and makingyou feel relaxed, talking to Pete Rose.
And one of the things, youknow, when you were my manager,
we used to always do infield outfield. I remember coming up when you
were my manager, and we'd evenback up bases as pitchers, talk about

(05:47):
defense and working on defense. Youknow, not just yourself, Willy,
all of you old timers. Imean you played live BP, you play
the ball off the bat, thingslike that that the guys today don't do
a lot up. I used togo out watch I used to go out
and watch Ozzie Smith do infield byhimself because I was so fascinated by how

(06:08):
amazing he was talk about, youknow, guys like Willie and guys like
that, and what they did everyday. Well, Rob, what guys
back in those days, what theyrecognize, and I don't think they do
as much today. Uh, Andyou know as well as I, there's
two phases of the game of baseball. One is offense and one is defense.

(06:28):
And when you don't have the batin your hand, you got to
work your ass off to play gooddefense. Now, if that's going out
and working on the line, drivesand buy balls and stuff like that during
VP, then you got to dothat. And Willie was always in the
out running balls down, make ityou know, shagging. I guess that's
what what you would call today.And he always took real pride in the

(06:49):
way he played the game of defense. And I know, pitchers a fish
for that team I really appreciated.Uh. They they knew that you could
hit the ball center to rights centerand Willie was going to run it down.
That's just the way he was,and he understood the importance of defense
as he did the importance of offense. And you know, his six hundred

(07:12):
and sixty home runs, that's alot of home runs for a guy that
played the Candlestick Park, because thatwasn't the easiest ballpark to hit home runs
in. So I got to takemy hat off to Willie is a complete
player, probably if not the mostcomplete player ever, Certainly if he's not,
he's one of the top two orthree. But I also got to
think that he had to be oneof the smartest players as well, because

(07:35):
not only you know, physically he'sgreat, but to know where a pitch
is supposed to be on a certaincount and to get a jump on that
probably gave him a leg up overmost players in his day. On top
of being so athletic, well,he understood the game, rob And you
know, that's the first thing aboutplaying the game of baseball. It's understanding

(07:55):
the game where you playing at,how many outs there are, who's the
home team, who's the road teamput in and win? Those are all
things you got to know today ifyou're a baseball player, and Willie was
certainly on the top of the list, knowing all those things. When he
was playing a game of baseball,you know, it wasn't just a game,
it was a philosophy. And hehad a great philosophy on how to

(08:18):
play the game of baseball, howto play the winning game of baseball.
That's what I liked about Willie.He was always on a winning team and
he did the most he could everyday to help the team win the game.
Talking to Pete Rose and we're talkingabout the life of Willie Mays,
how about the lineup was back inthe sixties, from like say sixty five

(08:39):
to seventy. How good were thoseSan Francisco Giant lineups with Orlando Cepaida and
Willie Mays, Willie mccubby some ofthose guys, and obviously you guys were
just starting to, you know,build into the big red machine. What
was it like to play against them? Well, you know the philipro Alu
brother that's right, brothers. Atone time I was three of them playing
for San Francis. But don't forgetWillie McCovey was a great player too.

(09:03):
Jimmy ray Hart was a great playerfor the San Francisco ball club as far
as hitting home runs. They alwayshad good hitters on that team. And
like I said a minute ago,that wasn't the best ballpark for home run
here to play in. You know, the fences were decent, but the
ball didn't carry there. There wasn'ta win at Candlestick Park. It was

(09:24):
right down on the water, butit was in enclosed stadium and he didn't
get much help from the mother naturewhen you played the game of baseball.
Talk about him leaving the game,and it just feels like twenty four time
All Star, like a lot ofthese guys could probably have still done it
for another couple of years. Butdo you know anything about his decision to

(09:46):
walk away from being a player.No, really, I really don't.
I think you just got older.You get the rob the harder it is
to keep up with it, especiallyif you're the type of player that he
was, because you expect certain thingsfrom yourself, from your body on a
daily basis. And don't forget Williewas helped to by twenty four All Star

(10:07):
games because I don't know what periodof time it was, but we used
to have the National League would havetwo All Star Games a year, and
that's why Willie hit me the honorof playing in twenty four All Star games,
you know, because I don't thinkhe played twenty four years, but
several years of his career he gotto play in both both All Star Games

(10:31):
during that particular years. So foryou, I mean, what seventeen All
Stars and all the other stuff thatyou did. What was it? I
remember talking to Willie about this yearsago. You guys never wanted the other
guys to play, so you playedthe whole game and talk about that.
Yeah. So like Willie May's andall those guys are like, hey,

(10:52):
you young bucks, you sit downbecause we're gonna play every inning of this
game. Yeah, forget that,get one that bat and fly. You
know, because another thing about myAll Star competition, Robison, we won
sixteen in the seventeen The only gamewe lost that I played in the All
Star Game was the seventy one AllStar Game in Detroit when Reggie Jackson hit

(11:15):
that mammoth home run off of DocEllis at Tiger Stadium, hit the transformer
on top of the stadium in rightfield. I mean, I've never seen
the ball hit that hard in thatcar. I mean, I mean,
but you know, doc Ellencey,he provided all the power on that the

(11:37):
one thing atte and I think thatwas our National League president name was Bill
Shiles, who was Warren Chiles's stad. I remember he used to come in
Rob and have a meeting before thegame, and he had always exercised the
importance of what in the game toshow the world that the National League was
superior to the American League. AndI remember the first year he retired,

(12:03):
believe president didn't even come in thenext year to talk to the team.
We're all sitting there waiting for thegame to start, and we says we're
gonna health. We're in hell.How come he didn't commit and talk to
us. We were waiting for thatpep talk that mister Giles used to give
us because he really believed. Hereally believed as I did and Willie did,

(12:24):
and Clemente did and Henry did.The National League was superior in the
American League. Why was it,I'll tell you why. Because we had
more African American players, And whatdoes African American players create, Rob,
You know, as well as Ispeed, We had more speed in the

(12:45):
American League and that's why we werebetter league. So we had great players
in the Americans nationally all the year. Well, because the same players were
always in the All Star Game.You had Henry, you had Willie,
you had Clemente. Yeah, thoseguys were repeaters as far as the All
Star Game was concerned. Who's closeWho's the guy that's playing in the BIGS

(13:09):
right now? That's close to thatkind of ilk, that kind of player.
Oh man, you're I had tothink awhile for that one. I
mean, there's some great players playingin the League of Baseball, but we're
talking about guys it's been around twothree four years. We're not talking about
a guy who's been in twenty fourAll Star Games, right, And I

(13:31):
think Willie probably thinks he was cheatedbecause you only got to win one World
Series I believe, Yeah, onlywon two MVPs. Yep, he just
thought, but that kind of record. He has six hur sixty home runs,
he'd have been them several times,you know. But hey, Willy
didn't ever complain. Will He justthere and helped his team win games on

(13:52):
a daily basis. And he alwayshad good teammates too. Why is it
robbed? Your good players always hadgood teammates. It's because they surround themselves
with good players. I mean,I figured that out after all these shares.
Why was I a good player,Rob? Because of Bench Morgan,
Perez, Schmid, Carlton, peoplelike that. Why was Willy a good

(14:16):
player? Because who hit behind him? Willie McCovey another Hall of famer,
Sapada, another Hall of famer.So you know, good players always have
Hall of Fame players playing around him, and Willie was no different he at
first to tell you, boy,I can't tell us now. But now
we had to go on life withoutWillie May so that's gonna be tough.

(14:39):
Absolutely well, we'll end on that. Peet, great catching up with this,
Sarah. You know I love youand I hope you're doing well.
You're doing a good job, Rob, keep it up. Thank you,
sir. Talk to you later,Pete, Thank you, buddy. All
right, buddy, thanks bye.All right, we'll take quick break here
on the Rob Devil Show. BenDarnell in your afternoon Drive live from the
Travelers Championship Farmington Polo Club Sponsored apartmentby the Farmington Polo Club. Enjoy the

(15:03):
thrill of polo matches every Saturday thissummer. For more infro, go to
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