"People ask me what I do in winter when there's no baseball. I'll tell you what I do. I stare out the window and wait for spring." Rogers Hornsby
"Baseball is almost the only orderly thing in a very unorderly world. If you get three strikes, even the best lawyer in the world can't get you off." Bill Veeck

Sunday, October 30, 2011

Pickling Willie Mays

In Bill James 2003 "Historical Baseball Abstract," under his comment on Tony Taylor he describes the Phillies and Giants playing a game in 1963. A series of pitches, plays, and other events finds Willie Mays caught in a rundown, between second and third base.

Anyone with a reasonable sense of humor has a time (or 1000) when something just cracks them up so much, they can’t repeat why they are seemingly hysterical. So it was about 10 days ago when I attempted to tell Susan why I was laughing so hard that snot was running down my cheeks, and my eyes were stinging from the tears.

The reason for me is below, and it's for anyone who may ever be called upon to describe what a great base runner Willie Mays was, Bill James has given all of us the perfect line:

"Catching Willie Mays in a rundown is like trying to assassinate a squirrel with a lawn mower…"
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