Friday, April 5, 2013

Willie Mays or Duke Snider? It's incontrovertible

My best guess is that I was somewhere between 4 and 6 when this incident occurred.  I was having one of my regular debates with my good friend Gregory who lived on the first floor.  We lived on the 5th. The topic du jour was who was better Willie Mays or Duke Snider.  Gregory a Brooklyn Dodger fan contended that Snider was better.  I, a NY Giant fan, argued that Mays was better.

Why was I, a kid from Brooklyn  a Giant fan at the age of 4, 5, or 6.  Here is how.  When my father was about nine someone asked him who he rooted for in baseball.  At the time my father did not know much about baseball. One of the teams he had heard of was the Giants.  So, he told the inquirer that he was a fan of the Giants, then became a fan of the Giants--a serious fan.  And, then of course, my brother and I became serious fans.

In Brooklyn--and knowing my mother I do not know how this passed inspection--I scotchtaped on the wall above my bunkbed, the baseball cards of all the Giant players in the shape of a diamond.  So, Johnny Antonelli was on what would have been the pitcher's mound, Wes Westrum the catcher, Whitey Lockman at first, the great Willie Mays at center, Don Mueller in right.  I can't remember all the players now, but I know that I had them scotch taped on the wall.

Tales of the 1951 playoff series with the hated Dodgers are among the first stories I ever heard. Bobby Thomson hitting what would now be called the walk off homer heard round the world was a regular thing to joyously reconsider.

My father was crazy about Willie Mays.  No matter what you hear from whippersnappers, Willie Mays was the best baseball player ever to live.  Nobody went to third from first on a single if Mays corralled it.  A fly ball anywhere was made to look easy as Mays got such a good jump on the ball. He could hit, and hit with power.  Every time he got up to the plate was a time to get excited about the possibilities.

So, the debate with Gregory was frustrating.  Four, 5, or 6 year old me was trying to explain to 4, 5, or 6 year old Gregory why Duke Snider was nothing compared to the great Willie Mays.  Gregory would hear nothing of it.  The Duke was better.

To prove my point, I contended with all seriousness and not a speck of what would be considered hyperbole that Willie Mays could hit a homer anytime he wanted to.  The ensuing discussion took the form of a very mature give and take.

Could not.
Could to.
Could not
Could to.
I'll make you a million dollar bet.
I'll make you a gazillion dollar bet.  (probably felt certain that there was a numerical value to a gazillion).

This kind of repartee is not that different from what I hear as a university administrator during high power meetings, but there, some of the language, is more dignified--and discussants tend to elaborate.

Anyway, here we were around 1954 discussing something important. Who was better Willie Mays or Duke Snider. I had taken the stand that Willie was better and I had proof: Willie Mays could hit a homer whenever he wanted to.  Ha.  Gregory was wrong to dispute this.

Fortunately, to put an end to the discussion (and to allow us to move on to more substantive issues like which candy store had the best Italian Ices) my father happened to our location.

Okay well now Gregory was cooked.  I had the proof.

"Daddy." I said.  "Can't Willie Mays hit a homerun every time he wants to?"

I remember his response and his facial expression clearly.  I must have gotten him at a time when he was tired and not interested in responding to such an idiotic query. Usually he would be far more diplomatic.

"Of course not," he said.  "If Willie Mays could hit a homerun every time, then he would hit a homerun every time."

To both Gregory and me that logic was stunning.  We had not gone that far in logic at PS 194.  Gregory did not exalt. He, like I, took it in.

We both got it.  You could not deflate that logic. It was incontrovertible.  (a word I know largely because of listening a gazillion times to advertisements for Castro Convertible furniture as a child. First lines of the jingle,

"Who's the first to conquer living space. It's incontrovertible.
That the first to conquer living space it's Castro Convertible." 

If you lived in Brooklyn in the fifties I can almost guarantee that you can recite the rest of the jingle. Sing along with me, "Who saves you space with fine design? Who saves you money all the time? Who's tops in the convertible line? Castro Convertible").

Sofas aside, the point dad made was incontrovertibly logical.  Willie Mays could not hit a homer every time, because if he could he would.  This did not mean he wasn't better than Duke Snider. It meant that the argument I used had been refuted.

I wish that politicians or religious extremists who debate the wisdom of this act or that would accept logic that is incontrovertible.  I am exasperated reading articles of zealots on the right or left who will make transparently bogus claims and hang onto them regardless of incontrovertible evidence. 

If my dad told Kool Aid consuming fanatics some equivalent of "Willie Mays would hit a homer every time if he could, so therefore since he did not hit a homerun every time, he cannot hit a homer every time." the fanatics would find a way to dispute the logic. 

That is because they are older than 4, 5, or 6. 

And because they have adopted a hidden agenda.  I read a very disturbing article yesterday about a Congressman from Kansas who is against spending and aggravates even Republicans by voting against every compromise measure.  This Kansan who was described in the article as representing the reddist county in the reddist state, is against all federal programs EXCEPT farm subsidies to his district and federal inspection of beef which, if eliminated, would affect constituents who benefit from these federal programs.  So ALL spending is bad UNLESS it is spending for me.

Incontrovertible evidence is valueless when dealing with someone who has let the Kool Aid course through the system.

P.S. Willie Mays was a gazillion times better than Duke Snider.


  1. Great blog. You were precocious. I didn't follow baseball till the 56 Yankee/Dodger series when we got our first little black and white tv. The first arguments I remember (went to PS 111 in Queens) were Mantle vs Mays, Reese vs Rizzuto, Berra vs Campanella. I had a boycrush on Mantle, but you are incontrovertibly correct . In retrospect I see Mays as the best ever. Don't remember the Castro jingle, but do remember a little girl in pajamas pulling out the bed.

  2. Thanks Gene. Hadn't thought of the little girl pulling out the bed in ages. The jingle would accompany the tv ad, and also play on the radio without the girl.