On the finish, the Say Hey Child appeared nothing just like the extraordinary drive who had been on the middle of the American creativeness for a lot of the 20th century.
The Child — Willie Mays — struggled on the plate and found the basepaths. A line drive arced his means, simply catchable for Mays throughout most of his profession. However he fell. One other outfield mistake induced the sport to be tied within the ninth inning.
He was a creaky-kneed 42 years outdated on that October afternoon, Sport 2 of the 1973 World Sequence — Mays’s New York Mets in Oakland going through the A’s. On the grandest stage, the ravages of time had settled upon the sport’s most gilded star.
That he would redeem himself on the plate three innings later is commonly forgotten. The unthinkable had occurred. Mays had not solely failed, he had appeared misplaced, clumsy and out of kinds.
The shock of seeing him that means would linger gone his taking part in days as a warning: Don’t be like Willie Mays, sticking round too lengthy, stumbling in middle area, a shadow of his former self. Such turned the axiom, uttered in so many phrases by everybody from politicians to enterprise leaders to commentators weighing in on nice athletes who yearn to play into their twilight.
Stop earlier than it’s too late.
In retirement, Mays, who died on Tuesday at 93, did his finest to disregard the sport that might be his final. However there’s one other approach to view its echoes.
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