Comments on: No Relation

No Relation

davidjmcgee — Fri, 16 May 2014 11:06:40 -0800

It's easy to explain why you love a conventionally excellent player, but way, way more fun to try and explain the appeal of a top-flight athlete whose every step and twitch appeared to be bringing him dangerously close to death itself. You had this guy, St. Louis, and he was awesome and everything, but every time he hit a triple he'd pop up and have the saddest look on his face like everything he loved had died, and left him with the soul of an ancient, sad, and immortal Golem. It was like watching Buster Keaton play centerfield, and he was like that every time he played.

SB Nation Reviews: Willie McGee

By: Curious Artificer

Curious Artificer — Fri, 16 May 2014 11:12:07 -0800

When he got to the plate, he looked like he had just been beaten by angry people with truncheons, a crouched, stiff figure who didn't swing a bat so much as he threw it at the ball hoping for something to happen. Now, that's good writing.

By: evisceratordeath

evisceratordeath — Fri, 16 May 2014 11:16:09 -0800

God damn do I love Willie McGee. Thanks for this.

By: jsturgill

jsturgill — Fri, 16 May 2014 11:17:34 -0800

Nice writing! I enjoy Willie McGee so much right now.

By: drjimmy11

drjimmy11 — Fri, 16 May 2014 11:18:20 -0800

During one error-binge in a 1990 season full of disastrous defense, he threw his glove over the wall and never asked for it back. That just makes me sad for him.

By: drjimmy11

drjimmy11 — Fri, 16 May 2014 11:19:21 -0800

Also, my friend used to think it was the funniest joke in the world to sing, to the tune of "Raspberry Beret," I was workin' part time in a five-and-dime/and my boss was Willie McGee

By: Bovine Love

Bovine Love — Fri, 16 May 2014 11:19:36 -0800

I don't much care about baseball at all (though did enjoy Moneyball), but the lead here sucked me into reading the article and I was not sorry for it. Fascinating character.

By: JPD

JPD — Fri, 16 May 2014 11:21:03 -0800

I'd point out that the the author is the also the proprietor of Every Day Should Be Saturday - AKA the only college football blog worth reading

By: gladly

gladly — Fri, 16 May 2014 11:25:46 -0800

Between this piece and the Jon Bois pieces, I clearly need to re-evaluate SB Nation. This is wonderfully written.

By: penduluum

penduluum — Fri, 16 May 2014 11:27:56 -0800

Spencer Hall is doing stuff with sports writing (and has been for a while) the way Rob Delaney was doing stuff with Twitter a few years back. He's fantastic.

By: clockzero

clockzero — Fri, 16 May 2014 11:28:09 -0800

I love descriptions of awkward batters, for some reason. I like Teixeira almost solely because he looks like such a goofball when he's at bat.

By: Mister_A

Mister_A — Fri, 16 May 2014 11:33:36 -0800

Man those St. Louis teams were murder on the basepaths. And they were always on base!

By: DirtyOldTown

DirtyOldTown — Fri, 16 May 2014 11:36:35 -0800

Okay, now I want them to do Tony Batista.

By: joechip

joechip — Fri, 16 May 2014 11:38:04 -0800

I feel like there could be a FPP just dedicated to Willie McGee's baseball cards. Especially compared to the cool indifference favored by 99 percent of ballplayers, he always stood out, whether he just (as the article stated) watched his pet rabbit get murdered, or was having an existential crisis, or he had just farted, or was just wondering which one of you farted.

By: Our Ship Of The Imagination!

Our Ship Of The Imagination! — Fri, 16 May 2014 11:40:44 -0800

I had forgot about ol' Willie. Definitely one of my favorite players. One of my old coaches yanked me aside to scream at me to stop batting like Willie McGee.

By: Greg_Ace

Greg_Ace — Fri, 16 May 2014 11:47:32 -0800

Maybe the whole time he was feeling trapped in his career, and just wanted to be a dentist.

By: vapidave

vapidave — Fri, 16 May 2014 11:47:35 -0800

This is hilarious. I lived in SF when he played there - he was a great player - but no matter the situation he always wore the expression of someone about to receive a urinary catheter.

By: DigDoug

DigDoug — Fri, 16 May 2014 12:20:34 -0800

joechip: I will give you $3 to do a baseball card FPP. Damn I miss Whiteyball!

By: languagehat

languagehat — Fri, 16 May 2014 12:23:07 -0800

Man, that sonofabitching Willie McGee. Great player (and a great article, thanks for the post) who absolutely murdered the Mets in '85 (when he got the MVP). Gooden went 24-4 and the Mets should have gone all the way. How I hated the Cards in those years! /still bitter

By: AgentRocket

AgentRocket — Fri, 16 May 2014 12:26:40 -0800

Oh man, I love Willie McGee so much. I was in kindergarten when the '82 Cardinals won the World Series (and Willie had that fantastic HR robbing catch at County Stadium in Milwaukee), and was so lucky to grow up watching him play. When I was in grad school in St. Louis, the chairman of the Cardinals came and talked to our class. It was a talk about economics - at the time, the Cardinals were pitching their new stadium and wanted public money for it. At the end of his presentation, they opened the floor for questions. I got the first one, and asked "when are you guys going to retire number 51?" He gave back some canned answer about only doing it for hall of famers or something, but he said "that's one of the most frequent questions I hear. And if you have noticed, nobody wears that number now..." Other than one player in 2001 (Bud Smith, who wore it for only one appearance, to the great dismay of the fans), nobody has worn 51 since McGee retired in 1999.

By: mullacc

mullacc — Fri, 16 May 2014 12:27:34 -0800

Born Ugly: The Willie McGee Story

By: mosk

mosk — Fri, 16 May 2014 12:30:40 -0800

Wonderfully written article! Thanks for posting that. A nice palate cleanser after a crummy morning.

By: middleclasstool

middleclasstool — Fri, 16 May 2014 12:34:17 -0800

McGee had one of the ugliest swings in the game, but it worked. Story is that after he made it to Busch, somebody (I think it was Herzog, but it may have been higher up) sent the word down: Anyone who tries to improve McGee's swing is fired. /still bitter I knew there was a reason I never liked you.

By: Horace Rumpole

Horace Rumpole — Fri, 16 May 2014 12:37:05 -0800

Then there is the kind of fast that terrifies you for all the wrong reasons, like when a toddler in a grocery cart gets loose and begins rolling downhill in a busy parking lot. Oh my christ I love this piece so much. I will never enjoy anything in sports as much as a enjoyed watching a Cardinal in 1985 steal a base while the opposing catcher lost his goddamn mind.

By: echocollate

echocollate — Fri, 16 May 2014 12:43:18 -0800

That was fucking superb writing. I still have that Donruss Diamond Kings card in a little frame in my closet somewhere. A friend tried to tell me they were worthless. I said, Man you don't know the value of things.

By: joechip

joechip — Fri, 16 May 2014 12:49:20 -0800

Anyone who tries to improve McGee's swing is fired. I get a real kick out of quirky batting stances. That's why I enjoy the Batting Stance Guy's take on the Cardinals, with the vast majority dedicated to idiosyncratic Whiteyball-era players (McGee at 1:24).

By: Jacob G

Jacob G — Fri, 16 May 2014 12:53:32 -0800

The Cardinals in the 80's and excitement surrounding them in St. Louis are what turned me into a lifelong baseball fan and made desperately want to play as a child. Home runs can go screw, give me small ball all day long!

By: ChuckRamone

ChuckRamone — Fri, 16 May 2014 12:54:18 -0800

His dad was a Pentecostal deacon? Aren't those the Christians who sometimes speak tongues and go into trances and stuff? Maybe that explains some things.

By: vapidave

vapidave — Fri, 16 May 2014 13:05:56 -0800

For the youngsters and to avoid misunderstanding, "Whiteyball is a style of playing baseball that was developed by former Major League Baseball manager Whitey Herzog."

By: Nat "King" Cole Porter Wagoner

Nat "King" Cole Porter Wagoner — Fri, 16 May 2014 13:07:52 -0800

Willie McGee was a fantastic ballplayer, always seemed like a decent guy off the field, and remains much loved by Cardinal fans. Nice to see somebody outside of St. Louis showing him some love, too.

By: stltony

stltony — Fri, 16 May 2014 13:47:40 -0800

Home runs can go screw, give me small ball all day long!

Yes! Home runs are fine but a bloop single to right and a guy with a jump scoring from second is great baseball

By: Mister_A

Mister_A — Fri, 16 May 2014 13:51:15 -0800

Man that video joechip linked is hilarious!

By: Mister_A

Mister_A — Fri, 16 May 2014 13:56:48 -0800

Anyway, yeah, like languagehat said above, the Cards were the arch-enemy of any Mets fan in those days. If Vince got on, you knew he was going to be on 3rd in a minute. That near-certainty, in a way, was more demoralizing than the spectacular but relatively rare homer, just because of the predictability, the inevitability of it. The Cards always made you feel like you were behind before the game even started.

By: Mick

Mick — Fri, 16 May 2014 14:11:04 -0800

The Cardinals kicked ass in NES RBI Baseball.

By: protocoach

protocoach — Fri, 16 May 2014 14:20:34 -0800

Spencer Hall is seriously the single best sportswriter on the face of the planet and has been for the better part of a decade now. If you aren't reading EDSBS, you are missing out. I'm glad to see his work on the blue. And SBNation, more broadly speaking, is great, although there are pockets of stupidity and terribleness. But, for a site with 300+ subsites, there is a tremendous amount of quality stuff there.

By: 6ATR

6ATR — Fri, 16 May 2014 14:29:05 -0800

Spencer Hall previously

By: Sphinx

Sphinx — Fri, 16 May 2014 15:19:35 -0800

Wow, what a fantastic article. And about one of my favorite players to boot! McGee always looked like he should have been playing in the '60s, not the '80s. Got to see him live at the Dome Game 1 in '87, still the loudest experience of my life.

By: mondo dentro

mondo dentro — Fri, 16 May 2014 15:21:56 -0800

Great article. God help me, I love baseball.

By: asterix

asterix — Fri, 16 May 2014 15:25:27 -0800

Home runs can go screw, give me small ball all day long! Someone pointed this out ages ago... Sabermetrics have been wonderful for the game in terms of breaking it out of some of the stupid beliefs that held it hostage for so many years, and there's no question that in the current climate the Three True Outcomes are the right things to value, but goddamn if on a day to day basis it doesn't make for more boring games than small ball. It'll never happen, but I'd really like to see the rules change to make Whitneyball more viable again.

By: languagehat

languagehat — Fri, 16 May 2014 16:34:17 -0800

> How I hated the Cards in those years! I feel I should qualify this. I hated the team, but I didn't hate Ozzie Smith, because what kind of monster could hate Ozzie Smith?

By: Rock Steady

Rock Steady — Fri, 16 May 2014 16:56:33 -0800

I feel I should qualify this. I hated the team, but I didn't hate Ozzie Smith, because what kind of monster could hate Ozzie Smith? The Wizard of Oz on The Baseball Bunch

By: rodeoclown

rodeoclown — Fri, 16 May 2014 17:21:58 -0800

One of my prized possessions is the only baseball I've ever caught: a Willie McGee foul ball I caught in Fenway Park in 1995, during his only year with Boston. I'm just excited to have ever gotten a ball, but especially there, and (thanks to this article) especially from him. (Long story alert:) It was one of the finest days in my life: I'd gone to college in Boston from 90-94, back when anyone could still walk up and buy a bleacher seat the day of a game. I'd now moved to the west coast for my first job, but was back east for a business trip and stopped by to visit college friends. Saw the Sox were playing that afternoon and made a spur-of-the-moment decision to walk over and see if I could get in. As I was approached the box office, I heard a scalper calling out 'who needs tickets?' and for some reason spoke up (I'd never considered this in my life), "How much?" "Face value, man... the game's already started and I need to unload these." So I spent $20 on the first box-seat ticket of my life... a colossal sum for me at the time, but I was feeling flush after the transition from ramen-eating student to gainfully-employed engineer. I headed into the park and tried to find my seat... an usher finally pointed me to where I didn't think could possibly be correct: second row, right behind third base. Never thought I'd warm a seat like that in my life. The guys in the seats around me asked, "hey, how much did you pay for that ticket?" "Face value--$20." Turns out a group of four die-hard fans from Maine had planned this trip forever, gotten hotel rooms and bought outrageously overpriced tickets, even had the foresight to bring their gloves because they knew they were going to be sitting right on the field. One of their buddies had cancelled on them late, so they'd been forced to sell off his ticket to a scalper outside (taking a large loss), and here I am, now sitting in his seat for only $20. So, maybe around the 4th inning, Willie McGee slaps a hard grounder foul, down the third-base line. The Maine guys in front of me—ready for their moment to shine!—lean out and over the wall to field it... and the ball's so hot that it bounces out of one guy's glove, rolls up his arm and into mid-air above the crowd. Everyone within a ten foot radius starts wildly swinging and clawing the air, like a pack of methed-out T-Rexes, as the ball popcorns around for a few bounces... and I feel the ball satisfyingly thwack into my palm. Of course, I have the instant brainstem reaction to strike the triumphant Statue-of-Liberty pose for the Jumbotron. As I sat back down, I realized that through dumb luck, I've now not only taken their friend's expensive seat, but the once-in-a-lifetime souvenir ball which they had hoped and planned to get, with still more than half the game left. Watched the rest of the game with extremely awkward self-consciousness, as (completely unwarranted) visions of getting beat down and ball snatched start running through my head, then quickly hustled out of there. Still have it on my desk at work, where I see it every day!

By: spilon

spilon — Sat, 17 May 2014 11:38:11 -0800

Thanks for this. Willie was and always will be my #1 favorite player in the game, and Herzog-era Cards will always be my favorite team. I hope some day someone makes a Whiteyball movie. As time goes on, it only becomes clearer how unique that team really was.

By: davidjmcgee

davidjmcgee — Sat, 17 May 2014 13:48:29 -0800

rodeoclown, that is awesome.