‘Say Hey’ says it all about Willie

SAN FRANCISCO — What a great few days for baseball stars from the Bay: Dusty Baker on the tube and on top of the world (Series); Willlie Mays on the silver screen and always on our minds; Barry Bonds on stage and on target.

On Saturday night there was Dusty in Houston, finally clasping the long-missing World Series title. Twenty-four hours later, we were at the century-old Castro Theater in San Francisco, and there was the documentary “Say Hey, Willie Mays!” and in attendance for what was the local premiere was Bonds, Willie’s godson and, of course, the single-season home run champion.

The film, directed by Nelson George, offers some material we’ve seen over the years — not that anyone wouldn’t want another chance to catch The Catch in the 1954 World Series — and other stories not as well known, such as the racism Mays encountered when attempting to buy a home in the City.

Mays, now 91, was only a kid from Alabama, still a segregated state, when he joined the New York Giants in 1950, but he was brilliant virtually from the start. The actress Tallulah Bankhead said, “There are only two geniuses the world — Willie Mays and Will Shakespeare.”

Shakespeare didn’t give interviews.

So much of Mays’ genius, certainly, is physical. He was a so-called five-tool player — hit, run, hit with power, catch and throw — as we see again after he chased down Vic Wertz’s towering drive in the ’54 World Series. Willie spun around and fired the ball back to the infield.

I came to San Francisco in 1965, when Mays still was hitting home runs. The Giants came here in 1958, and Mays has a tough time adjusting — not to the game but to the Candlestick Park winds that, as mentioned in the documentary, kept his long balls from clearing the fences.

San Francisco was Joe DiMaggio’s town. He grew up here and played minor league ball here, years before the Giants arrived.

So when Mays came here in ’58, long after DiMaggio’s retirement following the 1951 season, the press looked back and not forward. Willie was not appreciated, Tallulah Bankhead to the contrary.

DiMaggio was damn good. His 56-game hitting streak in 1941 surely never will be broken. After Joe left the game, he would make public appearances and be introduced as “America’s greatest living ball player.”

But Joe was no Willie Mays, and he wasn’t forced to play home games at Candlestick Park as Mays was. 

George’s documentary, which will be streamed on HBO, doesn’t forget that Reggie Jackson played in Oakland and is a Hall of Famer, or Dusty Baker, who after the World Series win is destined to be one. 

Barry Bonds said the documentary “basically is about mentoring, about growing wiser and more proficient as we mature.”

The plan certainly worked for Willie Mays.

Dare we add, “Say hey?”

Will this be the ‘Dustino’ World Series for Baker?

The nickname seemed perfect at the time, “Dustino,” created by Rod Beck, one of Dusty Baker’s relief pitchers when enough talent and a bit of good fortune were part of the landscape for the San Francisco Giants.

It was 2002, and ahead was a World Series, one in which — talk about fortune — Darren Baker, Dusty’s then 3-year-old son, was hoisted out of harm’s way at home plate by an alert J.T. Snow.

But destiny, Dustiny, Dustino, whatever, did not last.

A 5-0 lead in Game 6 disappeared. And then in Game 7 so did the Series. Now, 20 years and four teams later, Baker, 73, at last may get his first World Series championship — as a manager. At least his team, the Houston Astros, is favored over the Philadelphia Phillies.

It’s not correct to call Baker the accidental manager, but after the Giants and four other teams Baker was briefly unemployed and baseball was in a bind.

The Astros were involved in a cheating scandal, having sent illegal signals, and in the midst of firing various individuals, including the manager.

What to do to restore honesty and confidence to the sport? Bring in reliable, proven, honest Johnnie Baker, better known as Dusty.

It would be only poetic justice if the guy who very much is the man in manager would get the title. He has more managerial victories, 2,093, than anyone without a Series win.

People often ask sporting journalists whether they root for the teams they cover. In most cases, the answer is no. You want to cheer? Go find a seat in the stands.

But we often root for individuals, those who understand our jobs, and through that understanding make the work and the relationships more professional.

Dusty belongs in that category. The door to his office always was open when he managed the Giants, and presumably it has been with other teams.

True, nobody forces you to manage, but managing is a test of a person. He decides which athletes to play and if they fail, well, somebody has to be the target. As you know, they fire the manager, not the centerfielder.

Baker has handled himself and situations with control, which is the most one can demand of a leader. He’s been there — won a playoff MVP award — and done virtually everything.

Except managed a World Series champion. And that could be rectified in a matter of days.

"We love going out there every single day and competing for him,” Astros third baseman Alex Bregman told Paul Newberry of the Associated Press. “He loves this team. He loves winning. He loves the game of baseball. And a hundred percent we want to win for him.” It’s a cliché, but Baker has nothing to prove, not even to himself. Sometimes things work out — and sometimes, as with the sixth game in 2002, they don’t.

“You can’t rush it before it gets here," he said in an analogy about winning, “because it isn’t here yet. You’ve just gotta put yourself in a position to do it.”

Dusty Baker has been in that position for too long.

A telling loss for the Giants

By Art Spander

SAN FRANCISCO -- One game, but a telling game. A game when the Cincinnati Reds took Matt Cain’s mistakes over the fence. A game when seemingly every time there was a line drive by one of the Giants it was right at someone.

A game when there was a sense of “Dustiny.”

Remember that word? It was coined by a Giants fan back in 2002 when Dusty Baker was the team’s manager and, until the sixth game of the World Series that year, fate was on their side.

Now Dusty is on the other side, managing the Reds, and so is good fortune.

Cincy didn’t win the opener of the National League Division Series, 5-2, Saturday night at AT&T Park because it was lucky. 

The Reds hit two homers off of Cain, who did not give up a run in any postseason game two years ago. The Reds had excellent pitching, especially when starter Johnny Cueto left after one batter because of a back injury. And, yes, the Reds had the breaks.

Cain drove a liner with the bases loaded in the second, but it was caught. Brandon Belt smashed a none-out ball with Hunter Pence on first – and Joey Votto leaped and turned it into a double play. Belt hit one to left in the sixth and Ryan Ludwick made a stumbling catch.

“Our guys never stopped going after the ball,’’ said Cain. “You can’t fault them.’’

Not at all. But this is baseball, and there are no style points. The oldest adage is “hit ’em where they ain’t.’’ The Giants hit ’em where they were.

And Brandon Phillips and Jay Bruce hit them into the seats for the Reds, who now need only two more victories in this best-of-five playoff to move to the League Championship Series.

“This is one game,’’ said Bruce Bochy, the Giants manager, stubbornly fighting any feeling of despair, a feeling that except for rare moments – a home run by Buster Posey, a couple of wild pitches in the bottom of the ninth – seemed to affect the sellout crowd of 43,492.

“We have a lot of baseball left,’’ Bochy tacked on.

Giants fans can only hope. For certain, they have Sunday night’s game by the Bay – perhaps the last home game of the season – and Tuesday night’s at Cincinnati. Nothing else is certain.

Especially after Cain, the guy who threw the perfect game back in June, the guy who started for the National League in the All-Star Game, gave up the shot to Phillips leading off the second. The disbelief was nearly palpable. So was the disappointment.

“He wasn’t as sharp as he normally is out there,’’ Bochy said of Cain. “He left a couple of off-speed pitches out there. He was missing spots a little bit.’’

Something the Giants, so dependent on pitching, couldn’t afford. Not when they were getting shut out until Posey homered in the sixth. That jolted the crowd out of its misery and torpor.

If you don’t count sing-alongs to the Bee Gees – the Bee Gees, for heaven’s sake – Journey and Cab Calloway, the people in the seats did little other than merely occupy them. Maybe the Blue Angels’ flyovers earlier in the day were too much.

Clearly the Reds were too much for the Giants, although Bochy kept offering the could-have, should-have explanations.

“We hit balls hard,’’ said Bochy. That they did, with little result. “I felt we had better at bats than what it looked like. We had a tough night with balls. We didn’t have a lot of things going for us.’’

What they had was 11 men left on base, and that can be credited to Reds pitchers – six different ones, including Cueto who had only eight throws to home plate before hobbling off – as well as the Giants’ inability. San Francisco was 0-for-5 with runners in scoring position.

“We nearly had the tying run on in the ninth,’’ said Bochy. True, but nearly doesn’t mean much. “I’m proud of the guys. We found a way to battle back, and we had two pinch hitters up there, and they got some good swings off. But we came up short.”

In the inning before that, with runners on first and second and two out, Gregor Blanco, playing in his first postseason game and having reached base three times, didn’t get a swing off. He watched a Jonathan Broxton pitch for strike three.

“It looked like a borderline pitch, and they got the call,’’ said Bochy. “Blanco thought it was outside, and it’s a tough break. Sometimes you have a great pitch thrown, and you can’t do anything with it.

“This is one game, and you hate to lose the opener, but these guys have been resilient all year, and it’s time for us to wash this off and be ready to be back at it (Sunday).’’

Nothing else they can do.