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Willie Mays Eviscerates Outrage Junkies on Daily Show

by Tommy Christopher | 7:59 am, February 11th, 2010

» 9 comments

I know I used that joke yesterday, but Jon Stewart‘s observation about the marketing of outrage has a direct bearing here. His guest on last night’s Daily Show was baseball legend Willie Mays, and the interview was very illuminating. So much of what we cover here centers around whatever “outrageous” thing is being said by people like Glenn Beck, Rush Limbaugh, or Keith Olbermann, and while sometimes it truly is an outrage, hearing Mays talk about his experience in the segregated baseball world put that all in perspective.

Ironically, it is Mays’ levelheadedness that prevents a clip like this from going viral, which is a shame. The more people who see this, the better.

Willie Mays is just before my time as a baseball fan, but as a kid, I read everything there was to read about baseball, and watched every second of baseball film they’d show on TV. Mays is being modest when he says he would have just edged out Babe Ruth. As Stewart points out, he hit 660 home runs despite missing 2 years for military service, and despite playing most of his career in Candlestick Park, a hitter’s nightmare. He did all this without steroids, and without the benefit if a designated hitter rule to add a few years to his career.

He also played most of his career in the segregation era, a time period that carried perils much greater than water fountains or restaurant kitchens. I recall the level of racial hostility that was socially accepted in the 70s, and can’t even imagine what that must have been like in Mays’ time, when it was legally codified.

Although a much lesser indignity than segregation, Mays also played his entire career under baseball’s reserve clause, never enjoying the benefit of free agency. The most he ever made in a single season was $180k. That’s not even autograph money for today’s superstars. With all of that, Mays displays not a hint of bitterness.

There’s something else about Mays that’s impossible to capture with words or statistics. At its best, baseball transcends athletics, and becomes a work of art. In the main hall of that gallery hangs Willie Mays’ masterpiece, one crudely preserved in flickering black and white film that I’ve seen a hundred times, deceptively named to ignore its third act. If this picture doesn’t automatically come to mind when you hear the words “The Catch,” then you’re no kind of baseball fan.

Glenn Beck, Jon Stewart, Rush Limbaugh, The Daily Show, Tommy Christopher, Willie Mays

The Real Royal King

Mays has always been a class act and a national treasure. Stewart, too, is a national treasure. He brings into our living rooms information we would never have if we existed on steady diet of FOX or cable “news” alone. Now, back to measuring snow alongside the Garden State Parkway.
marcus.lewis

I am glad that you at least, has also agreed that media relies on truthiness headlines. It has become a cyclical effect—the media has a headline that is equivalent in its detail as the story contained, the more consumers turn to those headlines expecting good stories, then media see’s the headline was effective so the continue to do the same with perhaps the accuracy of the headline and story not being even close to true. But people seem to like it…so why stop? Perhaps, some argue journalistic standards; others, argue it creates cynicism; me? Well it won’t ever stop. That’s why HG Wells’ radio play War of the Worlds was so popular.

Mays is a great man, and has a smart sense of humor. I think you did a good post here detailing Mr. Mays’ struggle with segregation. He portrays it as he was a realist who accepted whatever he had and made the best out of it. While vocal and idealistic often get the headlines, its men like Mr. William Mays who actually make up the content of the story. I for one am glad that I fail to read catchy headlines with sketchy stories, and prefer the dull headline with a very brilliant story. I wish that players now could uphold the qualities that Mays did.
liberalontogeny

Marcus.Lewis,

I echo your comments. Well Done. I will also put in a pug for his new biography ”Willie Mays: The Life, The Legend” by James S. Hirsch.

NYT did a nice review and interview with Mays couple weeks ago:

Willie Mays Decides to Tell His Story

Concerning the media. Like Mays, perhaps promoting progress and reform back to ”class’ ethics of his generation would be good for the industry and culture as a whole.
writer

Say hey, Willie. (Could we ban saying ‘eviscerate’?)
Tommy Christopher

Writer,

way ahead of you. the eviscerate joke is on moratorium.
Yeta

“Mays is being modest when he says he would have just edged out Babe Ruth. As Stewart points out, he hit 660 home runs despite missing 2 years for military service, and despite playing most of his career in Candlestick Park, a hitter’s nightmare.”

Willie Mays was a great ballplayer and is a great man, but he couldn’t carry Babe Ruth’s rosin bag. Go ahead and make your best argument for Mays or anyone else, now or then, using all the batting stats you can find and Ruth will still at least be in the top 5. Then…remember that he would likely have made the Hall of Fame as a pitcher if he had never spent a day as an everyday ballplayer. You could look it up.
http://www.facebook.com/people/Ted-Silliman/1203235293 Ted Silliman

Settle down Yeta. It’s way over the top to say Mays couldn’t carry Ruth’s rosin bag.

The case for Mays is that he was the best player in the best era of baseball. Before the steroid era and after full integration of blacks and Hispanics. Josh Gibson and Cristobal Torriente, two of Ruth’s contemporaries in the Negro and Cuban Leagues were thought to be better players by many who saw them play together. As a matter of fact, Torriente’s team beat Ruth’s during their primes, and he badly outplayed him over a 9 game series.

Ruth is by far the most famous and most important player in baseball history, but you can certainly make an argument that others were as good as him on the field.
elizadavid

What a WONDERFUL interview of a truly magnificent man. I watched him play many times at Candlestick park, and feel grateful to have been able to see him play in person. At one time Satchel Page was also there! Willie Mays’ incredible way of dealing with early racism is to be admired. How many could be so kind and gentle in the days before the civil rights legislation? We all need to thank Willie Mays and other great Americans of all races who helped “most” of us set the country on a different path.

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http://www.facebook.com/people/Bill-Adkins/1585417987 Bill Adkins

You can ban eviscerate if you like – but, wow, Stewart did it to Gingrich.