This Week in Mets Quotes: Willie Mays 1931 - 2024 (2024)

Willie Mays: 1931 - 2024

“Willie Mays, who died Tuesday at the richly merited old age of 93, was baseball itself, more than anyone else ever connected with the game. Not just the best player, which he was. Not just the most joyful great player, which he also was. Not only the most extravagantly gifted of all the five-tool players that played during the richest era in the game’s history, although he absolutely was that as well. He was baseball, period, full stop.” -Ray Ratto [Defector]

“My father has passed away peacefully and among loved ones. I want to thank you from the bottom of my broken heart for the unwavering love you have shown him over the years. You have been his life’s blood.” -Michael Mays [The Athletic]

“I am beyond devastated and overcome with emotion. I have no words to describe what you mean to me — you helped shape me to be who I am today. Thank you for being my Godfather and always being there. Give my dad a hug for me. Rest in peace Willie, I love you forever.” -Barry Bonds [The Athletic]

“What always came off was: He was The Say Hey Kid. He had that ebullient personality — infectious and genuine and I got to tell him that he was the greatest player I ever saw.” -Keith Hernandez [The Athletic]

“I’m not sure what the hell charisma is but I get the feeling it’s Willie Mays.” -Former Red Ted Kluszewski [The Athletic]

“[Willie Mays opened his big-league career with a confidence-rattling 0-for-12 stretch before finally blasting a home run off Warren Spahn early in 1951.] I’ll never forgive myself. We might have gotten rid of Willie forever if I’d only struck him out.” -Warren Spahn [The Athletic]

“You used to think that if the score was 5-0, he’d hit a five-run homer.’’ -Reggie Jackson [The Athletic]

“What do you love most about baseball? Mays did that. To watch him play, to read the stories about how he played, to look at his glorious statistics, to hear what people say about him is to be reminded why we love this odd and ancient game in the first place. Yes, Willie Mays has always made kids feel like grown-ups and grown-ups feel like kids. In the end, isn’t that the whole point of baseball?”” -Joe Posnanski [The Athletic]

“Willie Mays was the happiest guy in the world to be Willie Mays,’’ Simmons, the broadcaster, once said. “That’s what he wanted to be: He wanted to be Willie Mays.” -Giants Broadcaster Lou Simmons [The Athletic]

Your 2024 New York Mets: We’ve got a good team.

“After what we’ve been through, especially the month of May, and then for us to play good baseball, it shows that we’ve got a good team, and we’ve got guys that are going to continue to compete.” -Carlos Mendoza [MLB]

To all you fathers out there, Happy Birthday.

[The dad of Mets outfielder Brandon Nimmo Googles the slugger’s name first thing every day.] I didn’t realize that he did this until probably a couple of years ago, but he gets up in the morning and he’ll just type my name into the news.” -Brandon Nimmo [New York Post]

“I have learned that it’s probably best that I let him find out about that stuff himself, not for me to bother him. I mean, he’s got a lot of people with a lot of input into what he should do and when he should do it and how he should do it. I was a partner at a CPA firm here in town, so that provided all the things that we needed, except for time. Thankfully, my wife was in charge of mostly getting the kids everywhere they needed to go and she did a great job.” -Ron Nimmo [New York Post]

Mets finally have a hitting coach and both his teammates and opponents respect him.

“I feel like the guys have been feeling more and more confident. I keep saying it, ‘Let’s just go out there and play hard and not worry about winning and losing. Let’s just play our game.’ -J.D. Martinez [New York Post]

“For me personally, I love to hit, I love to play ball. And I know that I prepare and do everything I can possibly do to get ready for every possible at-bat.” -J.D. Martinez [New York Post]

“How consistent [Martinez] is and the way he prepares and how he approaches every pitch, he’s a master at hitting. It’s fun to watch, and it’s contagious. We all watch and learn. … He’s always done that against my teams, so I’m happy he’s on my side.” -Francisco Lindor [New York Post]

“[Martinez’] such a professional hitter.” -Carlos Mendoza [New York Post]

“[Martinez] one of the best you’ll ever see. I played against him a long time. … He’s always smart and he’s always prepared. He’s always hungry and he always wants to make damage. He’s amazing.” -Jose Quintana [New York Post]

“Lindor put a bat on [Mazur], and then Nimmo got him and chased him and we didn’t want [Mazur] to see J.D. Martinez for the third time. … I don’t think we could have brought in, I don’t know, Walter Johnson, to face Martinez right now. I don’t think it would have mattered.” -Padres manager Mike Shildt [MLB]

But seriously, I’d rather McNeil listen to Martinez on hitting rather than our weird co-hitting coaches.

“[McNeil] has a tendency to want to go forward and slide and do different things like that; he has a lot of movement in his swing. His bat-to-ball skills are so elite, so it’s a fine line. There’s no exact one way to do it with hitting. But with that said, let’s just focus on being simple right now, and then we can build off that once we get back to baseline.” -Jeremy Barnes [New York Times]

“It’s just doubling down on that. We can’t give [McNeil] a magic pill that makes those line drives fall. We can just continue to put line drives out there. And that’s the biggest thing.” -Jeremy Barnes [New York Times]

Mendoza evaluates his player’s health on vibes...

“Just having conversations with [Edwin Diaz], the conviction, you can see it in his face, he’s not the same guy when he was struggling. You could tell he was feeling it a little bit, but the past couple of days and watching him pitch, even though he was facing minor-league hitters, you could tell he’s in a good spot and ready to go.” -Carlos Mendoza [New York Times]

“[Kodai Senga] was smiling after he was done throwing. That’s a good sign.” -Carlos Mendoza [New York Times]

...speaking of vibes, they’re good on this team right now.

“We are winning games, but even when it was hard for us, the guys never gave up. They continue to show up every day. They continue to work. Our preparation continues to get better and they are having fun.” -Carlos Mendoza [MLB]

“A lot of people forget that this game is hard and you are going to go through struggles, and you have to find a way to stay positive, even when it’s hard. … To see [the players] come through, it’s exciting. The expectations are — we will continue to prepare, push each other and compete.” -Carlos Mendoza [MLB]

“When everybody is hitting on all cylinders, it’s really fun as an offense. I felt we had great at-bats all up and down the lineup. I thought we did a great job of capitalizing on pitches in the zone and laying off some tough ones. We did a great job with our execution today.” -Pete Alonso [MLB]

“We have a purpose. Our intent usually follows the plan that we have. Yeah, we are playing well. This is a good wave that we are riding right now. We just have to make sure we stay on it as long as we can.” -Francisco Lindor [MLB]

“Huge, and you can feel it in the dugout. As soon as [Torrens] hit that ball, the reaction from the boys [was great]. Now you are up by two. It kind of shut down the momentum that [the Padres] had going into the ninth. So it’s a different inning. We continued to put together some at-bats.” -Carlos Mendoza [MLB]

“The way I was thinking about it is, ‘Well, we scored 14 runs yesterday, so six isn’t unfeasible’. We scored a bunch of runs yesterday in nine innings, and we’re not at nine innings yet, so let’s just keep wearing on them.’” -Brandon Nimmo [MLB]

Don’t look at his K/9 or FIP, David Peterson has completed at least 6 innings in 2 of his last three starts.

“It makes my job a lot easier. It frees you up to go out there and pound the zone ... I was just trying to get on and off the field as quickly as we could and let [the Mets hitters] do their thing.” -David Peterson [MLB]

I know the jury is still out on Carlos Mendoza but after a rough first inning by Manaea, Mendoza had a pep talk in the dugout that Manaea’s credits for righting the ship.

“I wanted to pump him up a little bit.” -Carlos Mendoza [MLB]

“Sometimes you need somebody to just slap some sense into you and you go out there and compete. The first inning could’ve been so much worse, but after that I reeled it in, getting ahead of guys, getting some quick outs. I’d say by far that was the best outing [of the past three or four], even though it was the worst start to it. I’ll take it.” -Sean Manaea [MLB]

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