[209 Life]

RIP Willie



San Francisco Giants legend and Hall of Fame first baseman Willie McCovey died on Wednesday.
He was 80.


McCovey died at the Stanford Hospital on Wednesday afternoon after a lengthy “battle with ongoing health issues.” He had been in a wheel chair for several years, and underwent multiple surgeries on his knees — one of which stemmed an infection in 2014 and nearly killed him. He recently developed an infection and was hospitalized last week, according to the San Francisco Chronicle.
McCovey played for the Giants from 1959-1973, and then again from 1977-1980 to close out his career after a brief stint with the San Diego Padres and the Oakland A’s. The six-time All-Star recorded 18 grand slams in his 22-season career, the most in National League history, and hit 521 home runs, which is No. 20 on the all-time list. He was named the 1959 National League Rookie of the Year, and then the National League Most Valuable Player in 1969.
His No. 44 jersey was retired by the Giants, who then erected a statue of McCovey in front of their stadium at China Basin Park in San Francisco in 2003. McCovey was inducted into the MLB Hall of Fame in 1986.

[jjgold]

Sad

Legend

[Louisvillekid1]

+1 ^

[franklee168]

Watched Stretch back in the 70's. Nice guy whenever I saw him at the ballpark the last 10 years. RIP.

[Booya711]

People die...it is what it is...guy had a great life

[lakerboy]

People die...it is what it is...guy had a great life

What about when dogs die?

[Chi_archie]

ah

2nd best Willie on most of those SF teams at best

RIP guy

[ChuckyTheGoat]

Watched Stretch back in the 70's. Nice guy whenever I saw him at the ballpark the last 10 years. RIP.

RIP, Stretch. One of the best.

[19th Hole]

RIP Willie.





TheBillRussell‏ @RealBillRussell
I'm extremely sad to hear of the passing of my dear friend @SFGiants Legend Willie McCovey. I will always have fond memories of him. Our thoughts are with his family. #RIP My friend #Forever44 #SFGiants
















.

[MinnesotaFats]

Just looked at his stats

Didn't realize he hung around till 1980

521 hrs but only 2200 hits

270 avg

IDK if HOF by today's standards?

[Mac4Lyfe]

RIP

[Mr KLC]

Super Sky Point to Willie McCovey. I’d like to think that Big Mac and Pops resumed this conversation tonight.

[MinnesotaFats]

Look at Stargels clear batting glove

That's throwback thread worthy

[ChuckyTheGoat]

Super Sky Point to Willie McCovey. I’d like to think that Big Mac and Pops resumed this conversation tonight.

Good one, KLC.

KLC, I have a recommendation for u for Thursday. Listen to Russo on Sirius82 at 3pm EST on Thursday.

Russo is a huge Giant fan. I'm sure he'll have some good material ready for the Thurs intro.

[Bostongambler]

RIP Big Willie

[Mr KLC]

Ahhhhhhh! The old Hostess Twinkie baseball card.

[ChuckyTheGoat]

Ahhhhhhh! The old Hostess Twinkie baseball card.

KLC, MadDog Russo is doing a good run-down on McCovey. Just like I knew he would. Joe Morgan segment coming up.

[sweethook]

RIP

[ChuckyTheGoat]

KLC, I missed the Joe Morgan interview. But Russo was on-point on THURS. Great show.

The McCovey death coincided w/ GBay packer OffTackle Bob Skoronski passing away. Dog did a 5pm interview w/ HOFer Jerry Kramer. I swear that was the best interview I've ever heard Dog do.

[19th Hole]

44 McCovey Cove








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Willie McCovey’s legend is secure in Bay Area


Editor’s note: Before his retirement in 2017, Mercury News sports columnist Mark Purdy reflected on Giants legend Willie McCovey.

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How incredibly sad to hear that Willie McCovey is no longer with us. His death Wednesday at age 80 was not unexpected. It was still crushing news, for all who loved and admired him. And that was a big club.
Yet I do feel good about one thing. McCovey died knowing he will never be forgotten in the baseball world — and especially in Northern California. McCovey once told me that he was truly worried about that, strange as that might sound.
The unique relationship I had with the man began at a construction site. He was not even there at the time. I was. And I believed McCovey’s name should be there, too.
This was back in 1999. The Giants’ new home, AT&T Park, was being built in San Francisco. I happened to be driving past the project. I knew there was going to be a statue of Willie Mays in the main plaza. However, nothing was planned to recognize McCovey.
That needed to change. Mays was the greatest San Francisco Giant. McCovey, though, was the most beloved. As I motored up Third Street that afternoon, I noticed how the waves of China Basin were lapping up against a walkway beyond the right-field wall. I thought it would be much better to have McCovey’s name on that piece of water.



A few strident newspaper columns later, the Giants and San Francisco bought my idea. McCovey Cove became a reality. Then it became a scene, a phenomenon. Then an institution. Just the way I had hoped.
And yes, we would talk about that.
“It’s gotten to the point now that I just don’t feel like it’s me,” McCovey said during one of those conversations. “It’s just a thing, you know, called McCovey Cove. People ask me, ‘How do you feel, seeing your name mentioned so much like that?’ I’ve kind of gotten numb to it, like it’s not really me. You know, it’s an honor. But it’s like when I see something on television about me … it’s hard to get into your head that it’s you up there. That’s hard to explain to people.”

Well, it is if you are a humble human being. McCovey qualified on an expert level.
As a teenager in the Midwest, I never quite believed the stories about McCovey actually being more popular than Mays in the Bay Area. How could that be? Mays was the greatest Giant ever, perhaps the greatest baseball player ever.
Then I grew up to become a sports journalist and met both men. I immediately understood.

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Mays and McCovey grew up in the segregated south. They had legitimate reasons to carry chips on their shoulders. But only one of them seemed to do so. Mays was a baseball genius but often a contrarian. He was accessible to fans or writers strictly on his terms. You would ask Mays a question about apples and he might answer with a cranky dissertation on oranges. McCovey erected no such barriers. If you approached him with a question or request and he believed that you were sincere, he was open for business with a genuine earnestness.
Also, as any longtime local fan will tell you, McCovey was the first non-inherited Giants star. Mays had moved west with the team from New York in 1958. McCovey came up from the minors a year later and went 4 for 4 in his first game at Seals Stadium. A few days later, he hit two homers in a game. The love affair commenced and never ended.
You can read his remarkable career statistics elsewhere. But more than any numbers, this quote from former Los Angeles Dodgers manager Walter Alston captures McCovey’s reputation: “When he belts a home run, he does it with such authority it seems like an act of God.”
Given all this, McCovey Cove was a natural idea. Just before it was dedicated, we met for lunch. I promised that I would never write about our exact conversation. So I won’t. But I’ll always treasure that day. We were not close friends. And because of my very small role in his life, I did get to spend some pretty cool moments with him.
The coolest of those moments occurred the day before the 2007 All-Star Game in San Francisco. McCovey allowed me to tag along with him for the home run derby ceremonies. About an hour before it began, we were in the office of Giants equipment manager Mike Murphy. Mays was there, too. So was Frank Robinson. I did the math. There were 1,767 career home runs in that room. None were mine or Murphy’s.
At such times, a good reporter knows to just shut up and observe. And you could tell how much Mays and Robinson respected McCovey just by how they became quiet when he spoke. They laughed as McCovey described one of his home runs that landed on an electric transformer beyond the fence at old Busch Stadium in St. Louis and short-circuited the power for a while. And there were headshakes of admiration when McCovey told the story of depositing another homer into a municipal swimming pool across the right-field wall at Montreal’s old Jarry Park.
Later that afternoon, McCovey received a standing ovation when he was introduced to the AT&T crowd. He proudly strode to the third-base line using the arm braces he needed to walk because of his troubled knees. Then he unhooked one brace so that he could raise his left arm and wave, before settling into a special easy chair near the home dugout to watch the derby.
Those damn knee problems were McCovey’s ongoing misery, a vestige of his playing days. The knees developed arthritis. He underwent experimental surgery to shave off a portion of his bones. It failed. McCovey received artificial knee replacements but developed a staph infection in one and was bedridden for months while it was treated. He never did recover totally.
There were other heartbreaks. After his retirement as a player, McCovey had been employed by the Giants as an instructor and community representative. But he was swept into a federal income tax controversy regarding card-show income that took a long while to sort out and settle. Then came the medical issues. The result was, when Peter Magowan’s ownership group took over the team in 1993, McCovey somehow slipped through the cracks. Mays, Orlando Cepeda and Juan Marichal were utilized as famous faces of the franchise in public roles. McCovey wasn’t.
At the time, this was what sparked McCovey’s concerns about being forgotten — as he confided to me shortly before the Giants also erected a statue of him on the shores of his Cove.
‘’It looked like I was being left out on a lot of the things going on with the Giants,” McCovey said. “There might have been a misunderstanding. I don’t like to open up a can of worms. I don’t know if it was intentional and don’t want to accuse anyone of anything. But if I was left out, it isn’t that way anymore. The ice has finally been broken.’’
More like smashed. The rest of his life, McCovey was a venerated guest at AT&T Park, as he should have been. He would ride in a golf cart through the corridor beneath the lower deck to the clubhouse for visits. He would ride the elevator up to a suite and watch the games. He would appear on the field to present the annual Willie Mac Award for “best exemplifying the spirit and leadership” shown by McCovey during his career.
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• Giants legend Willie McCovey dies at 80

So depressing to know he won’t be at those presentations again. But the Cove will always be there. And he understood that completely, thank goodness.
‘’Let’s face it,” McCovey told me once in an emotional moment. “To know there’s going to be something left behind after you leave with your name on it, it’s all you can ask. I thought it was an honor when the Little League field in Woodside was named after me, but this is even better. The only people who know about that are the people in Woodside. Everybody will know about this.’’
When I re-read that quote, I get emotional myself. Rest in peace, humble legend.

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Hall of Famer Willie McCovey was the most beloved San Francisco Giant of all time, (Kenneth Green Staff Archives)


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