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WILLIE'S THROW

by

PAUL METCALF

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I remember
what I think nobody else remembers . . .:
the way the clouds were against the sky . . .
. . . they were no longer white
but ribbed with gray too,
and you had the feeling that
if you could reach high enough
you could
get the gray out of there.

 

Still for the greatest day ever for Willie Howard Mays, you have to go all the way back to his rookie season of 1951. That was the year the Giants made their miraculous comeback in the last six weeks of the season to tie the Dodgers, who had lead by 13 1/2 games in mid-August . . . .

And the one play that may have turned around the whole year for both teams came on August 15. The Giants' streak had just about started -- four in a row -- and they were playing Brooklyn at the Polo Grounds. It was a 1 - 1 ball game, eighth inning, one out, Billy Cox on third, Ralph Branca on first and Carl Furillo up. In the stands there were 21,007 fidgety fans.

 

I lived with my Aunt Sarah and her family. I was born May 6, 1931, not in Fairfield but in a nearby place with almost the same name -- Westfield -- but the marriage of my father and mother didn't last much more than a year after that, and then I went to live at Aunt Sarah's house in Fairfield.

They were kids themselves, my mother and father -- no more than 18, either one of them, when I was born. But he was a baseball player, and my mother was a wonderful athlete herself -- a star runner who held a couple of women's track records in that part of the country . . . .

 

Furillo hit a fly ball into right center field. Mays, playing over in left-center for the notorious pull-hitting Furillo, had to come a long distance to make the catch. Make it he did, on the dead run, gloved hand extended, and that was the second out. But Cox on third had tagged up and was heading home with the lead run. And Cox could run like a deer. When Mays caught the fly ball, running full speed toward the right field foul line, he was moving away from the play. If he stopped dead and threw, he couldn't possibly get any zip on the ball . . .

 

. . .STRAIGHTWAY HE DREW ALL EYES UPON HIMSELF, WHEN THEY BEHELD HIS FRAME, SUCH PROMISE OF GREAT DEEDS WAS THERE.

 

. . .So he improvised. He caught the ball, planted his left foot and pivoted away from the plate . . .

 

What I did, though, was catch the ball and kind of let its force in my glove help spin me completely around.

 

. . .so that he threw like a discus thrower . . .

 

The art of throwing from a circle 8 ft. 2 1/2 in. in diameter to the greatest distance, and so that it falls within a 90 degree sector marked on the ground, an implement weighing 8 lb. 6.4 oz. known as a discus. The sport was common in the days of Homer, who mentions it repeatedly. It formed part of the pentathlon, or quintuple games, in the ancient Olympic games . . .

 

Fans in the bleachers must have wondered what in the world their boy was doing.

 

...The discus must be slung out and not really thrown at all; the athlete's difficulty lies in controlling an implement which can be retained under and against the hand and wrist only by centrifugal force and such slight pressure as the tips of the fingers are able to exert.

 

AT ONCE, THEN, CONFIDENT IN HIS POWERS HE MEASURES, NOT THE ROUGH ACRES OF THE PLAIN, BUT THE SKY'S EXPANSE WITH HIS RIGHT ARM, AND WITH EITHER KNEE BENT EARTHWARD HE GATHERS UP HIS STRENGTH AND WHIRLS THE DISK ABOVE HIM AND HIDES IT IN THE CLOUDS.

 

One time, outside of a flower store, I saw an emblem of this guy with wings that said you could send flowers by wire. And when the wind blew on the overhead utility lines and made the wires sing, I'd always think to myself that must be flowers going through the wires, somebody sending them to somebody else . . .

 

. . . WHAT POWER HAS MAN AGAINST THE GODS?

 

Preparatory to making a throw the athlete holds the discus in the right (best) hand so that the edge rests against the joints of the fingers nearest to the tips. He takes up his position in the rear half of an 8 ft. 2 1/2 in. circle with the feet about 18 in. apart and his left side turned in the direction in which the throw is to be made. The discus is swung up above the head, where it is met and supported by the fingers of the left hand. The right arm next swings back until it reaches a point behind and higher than the right shoulder. From this position, after two or three preliminary swings have been made and the right hand is at its highest point, the athlete commences a 1 1/4 turn in a kind of a dancing time with the right arm hanging loosely hanging down. The first pivotal movement is upon the left foot; when a half turn has been made the weight is transferred to the right foot, upon which the turning movement continues. As the left foot again takes the ground, at the front edge of the circle, the right leg begins to push the body forward and there is a violent turn of the right shoulder, but the arm is still kept trailing behind and the actual throwing movement does not commence until the right arm is well off the right shoulder. The left leg forms a point of resistance as the throw is made and the discus departs through the air mounting upwards . . .

 

But Willie, making a complete whirling pivot on the dead run, cut loose with a tremendous peg . . .

 

. . . AND HOLDING IT ALOFT SUMMONS UP THE STRENGTH OF HIS UNYIELDING SIDE AND VIGOROUS ARMS, AND FLINGS IT WITH A MIGHTY WHIRL, SPRINGING FORWARD AFTER IT HIMSELF. WITH A TERRIFIC BOUND THE QUOIT FLIES THROUGH THE EMPTY AIR, AND EVEN IN ITS FLIGHT REMEMBERS THE HAND THAT FLUNG IT AND KEEPS IT TO ITS DUE PATH, NOR ATTAINS A DOUBTFUL OR A NEIGHBORING GOAL . . . .

 

The throw came to the plate as a bullet and Whitney Lockman, the cut-off man . . . .

 

(. . . the good Lord willin' and the creeks don't rise . . .)

 

. . . let it go through and Wes Westrum, the catcher, caught it belt high and slapped a tag on a desperately sliding Cox. For a long time . . . the stands were silent, not quite certain they had seen right. Then they exploded when they realized Mays had turned a certain run into a miracle inning-ending double play.

 

. . .AND MAKES TREMBLE THE GREEN BUTTRESSES AND HEIGHTS OF THE THEATER ....

 

Eddie Brannick: The finest play I ever saw.
Charlie Dressen: He'll have to do it again before I'll believe it.
Carl Furillo: The play is impossible. And that's that.

 

 

Dr.Uhley: According to the textbooks every human being has a kind of layer of fat on his back ...
Willie: So?
Dr. Uhley: So?
Willie: I mean, what's the problem?
Dr. Uhley: The problem is you don't have any fat.
Willie: I thought you said everybody does.
Dr. Uhley: I didn't say everybody does. The book says everybody does. Until now, the book's been right.
Willie: Well, if I don't have the fat, what do I have?
Dr. Uhley: Willie, all you've got for a back is one continuous muscle.

 

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Bibliography:

Carmichael, John P., editor, MY GREATEST IN BASEBALL. New York, 1968.
ENCYCLOPEDIA BRITANNICA. Chicago. 1943 edition.
Mays, Willie and Charles Einstein, WILLIE MAYS: MY LIFE IN AND OUT OF BASEBALL. New York, 1966.
NEW YORK TIMES August 16, 1951.
Statius, Publius Papinus, THEBIAD, J.H. Mozeley, trans. 2 vols. London & Cambridge, 1961.

 

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WILLIE'S THROW first appeared in IO #10, 1971.
It was reprinted as a chapbook by Cheryl Miller & Kathy Walkup's Five Trees Press, San Francisco, in 1979.

Copyright © 1979 by Paul Metcalf.

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