Willie Mays to hitch a ride on AF1

[babylonsister]

Nice touch, nice honor for Mr. Mays


Willie, Obama and the Duke...
Posted: Monday, July 13, 2009 6:15 PM by Chuck Todd

From NBC's Chuck Todd


When Pres. Obama travels from Michigan to St. Louis tomorrow, he'll have a hall-of-fame baseball player traveling with him -- Willie Mays. The president is making two stops tomorrow. The first one is in Warren, Michigan, (a suburb of Detroit) where he'll talk about the economy, in general, and job training and worker education specifically. The second stop is St. Louis, Missouri, site of the 2009 Major League Baseball All-Star Game. Mays is flying to Detroit to meet up with the president and join him on Air Force 1 for the flight to St. Louis. The president is throwing out the ceremonial first pitch; it's only the third "first pitch" Obama has ever thrown out, believe it or not and his first one as president.

more...

http://firstread.msnbc.msn.com/archive/2009/07/13/1995279.aspx

[Historic NY]

1. His "B-ball" has always been bigger.

[lisa58]

2. THE Willie Mays?????? How cool.

[rurallib]

7. "say hey"

[Peacetrain]

3. Just started my day out right when I heard that

Willie Mays.. I am grinning ear to ear right now.. :)

[Mopar151]

4. Class shows, dears n/t

[NYCGirl]

5. I love the "Say Hay Kid". My dad used to take me to the game all the time

in my hometown (SF) to see Willie Mays, Orlando Cepeda, and the Alou brothers.

[brendan120678]

9. Pretty cool...

Although this is one of the best ways to remember him...



With a good old NY on his helmet.
Whether it's for Giants or Mets, it doesn't matter.
SF just doesn't cut it! ;-)

[NYCGirl]

12. I'll always remember him playing at Candlestick Park and the strong salt-water

scented wind off the bay!

[Brother Buzz]

16. He's wearing a SF uniform in the Cooperstown bronze, it was his choice

[nevergiveup]

6. His famous basket catch.

Does anyone know what I am talking about? As a kid I practiced it over and over and over.

[rurallib]

8. Well I am old enough to have watched Willie's career

As such am very familiar.

[rsdsharp]

13. Sure

Henry Aaron used it fairly often, too, but that didn't get mentioned much. Willie used it because he could get his throw off faster. He didn't have to bring his hand back down from head height, and then back up to throw. He was already at the low position.

[damonm]

14. The standard,

or the 1954 World Series version?
For my money, Willie Mays = best ever.

[slackmaster]

10. Billy Mays is dead, and the great Willie Mays lives on

Sometimes there is a bit of justice in this world.

[LynneSin]

11. My local news station has been running ads all day for the All-Star game and...

all of them mention that Barack is tossing out the first pitch. I think I'm going to have to watch the game tonight!

[Cha]

15. I don't know how this came about

but leave it to the Obama team to have an extra special surprise in honoring someone ..in addition to the usual Fun!

"He did not throw out a SINGLE opening day pitch this year, first sitting president since Ronald Reagan not to throw out a first pitch at an opening day anywhere. The All-Star game is not a bad place to debut your first pitch tossin' as president. BTW, I believe (and I need to triple check this, but it's baseball, so I'll toss this out there now), the last president to throw out a first pitch at an All-Star game was actually a VICE PRESIDENT, at the time. In 1986, then-VP George H.W. Bush threw out the first pitch at the 1986 All-Star game in Houston. And if memory serves, he bounced it to home plate because he had never tossed a baseball while wearing a bullet-proof vest.

*** UPDATE *** After triple-checking, Bush 41's opening pitch was at the Astros-Mets playoff game in '86, not the All Star Game."

The 3 comments under the blog are all bitter.

[Vidar]

17. Good for the Say Hey Kid.