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MLB world reacts to Willie Mays' death

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1 year ago

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MLB world reacts to Willie Mays' death

Major League Baseball and San Francisco Giants legend Willie Mays died Tuesday at age 93.

The “Say Hey Kid” performed with a showman’s flair, making basket catches in center field, taking daring chances on the base paths, winning four home run crowns, 12 Gold Glove Awards and laughing with a gleeful high-pitched voice.

Mays spent 21 of his 23 major-league seasons with the Giants organization in New York and San Francisco. He batted .301 with 660 home runs, 339 stolen bases and 3,293 hits and won two National League MVP awards.

Mays left an indelible mark on baseball, sparking many members of the MLB community to pay tribute to him at Tuesday night’s games and on social media.

Quotes and anecdotes around MLB:

Ken Griffey Jr.: “My heart is on the floor,” the Hall of Famer told MLB Network. “I’m just grateful and thankful that I was able to spend the time I had with (Mays) because he is a true giant, on and off the field.”

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Aaron Judge: The New York Yankees star outfielder and a California native reflected on meeting Mays.

“I have a family friend that is pretty close with his family,” Judge said. “I got a chance to meet him. He showed me a couple of things about throwing the baseball from the outfield, which I still remember. I have a couple of cool things that are signed in my childhood room still.”

Judge added: “Terrible, terrible news (of his death). I was a big Willie Mays fan. What he meant to the game, California, all of the Giants fans out there, especially me growing up, you wanted to play like Willie and make those catches that he did.

“The numbers he put up on the field and what he did are impressive, but him as a person and human being was even bigger. It was bigger than baseball. He was something special. The baseball world is definitely gonna be missing a great one.”

Mike Yastrzemski: “The things that he did, we’ll never see again,” the Giants outfielder said of Mays’ career. “He was such a talented player and he played the game as purely as anybody could. To be able to watch that on film — I’m glad there was film for it — because it’s something that’s going to be watched and studied for the rest of time.”

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GO DEEPER

Giants react to the death of Willie Mays: ‘The things he did we’ll never see again’

Sergio Romo: “Every day he was very willing to give his time, to give his expertise, to give his advice,” Romo, a three-time World Series champion with the Giants, told NBC Sports Bay Area about Mays visiting the club. “He made you feel visible.”

Bruce Bochy: This game allows you to meet some tremendous players and people, and I got to spend a lot of time with Willie during my tenure (in San Francisco) and it’s a sad day,” the former Giants manager and current Texas Rangers manager said. “What a legend he is.”

Billy Owens: The Oakland A’s assistant general manager and a Bay Area native paid tribute to Mays in a text message to The Athletic’s Melissa Lockard.

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“Say Hey was EVERYTHING…….Right there with Muhammad Ali as the Greatest,” Owens said. “The Excellence was Documented. The Style can never be duplicated. His power, speed and grace forever unique. The catch still captured the imagination almost a century later. Willie was New York(Polo Grounds) and San Francisco(Candlestick Park). I’ll watch Rickwood Field(Birmingham) this week and imagine Willie doing basket catches in Center Field and hitting homers into the Stratosphere. RIP Say Hey Willie Mays.”

Steven Kwan: The Cleveland Guardians outfielder and a Bay Area native said, “(Mays) was the face of the Giants. It was him and Barry Bonds and they would always be together. You’d see them talking. You wished you could be a fly on the wall for those conversations.”

Stephen Vogt: Cleveland Guardians manager Stephen Vogt’s grandfather lived in Oklahoma, and there were no MLB teams nearby. He chose the New York Giants as his team, mostly because he hated the Yankees and Dodgers. He loved watching Mays, and he’d prattle on and on about the center fielder to his son, Randy.

The Giants relocated to San Francisco in 1958 when Randy was three years old. The Giants became his team, and Mays was Randy’s hero. The family visited Candlestick Park every year.

Stephen grew up a Giants fan, too. The Vogts had season tickets in the upper deck down the left-field line. Stephen signed with San Francisco for the 2019 season. That spring, he met Mays. The two chatted in the clubhouse and took a picture together. Randy framed that photo, which sits on a shelf in his office.

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“One of the people who was a god to you,” Vogt said of Mays. “It was just this unfathomable figure. You never really saw him on TV, (just) highlights. It was really cool to meet him and then get a chance to chat with him.”

Harold Reynolds: “Willie was like a father to all of us,” the former Seattle Mariners second baseman told MLB Network. “He was from that generation that was passing it on. … He had advice for you on every aspect of your life.”

Craig Counsell: “I’m saddened by the news about Willie Mays,” the Chicago Cubs manager said. “This is one of the Mt. Rushmore of baseball players in my opinion. A legend in our game. I got to meet him a couple times. He was the kind of person, along with Hank Aaron, that made you nervous because of how great they were. It was sad news to hear during the game today.”

Cody Bellinger: “I saw the news (of Mays’ death) in the seventh inning and was pretty saddened by it. Wearing the number 24 is special. He’s one of the best players in our game. Just seeing him around a few times on the field was a true blessing. An unbelievable guy and best wishes to his family right now.”

Bellinger wears No. 24 with the Cubs, the same jersey number Mays wore with the Giants and the New York Mets.

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The Athletic’s Chris Kirschner, Melissa Lockard, Zack Meisel and Sahadev Sharma contributed to this story.

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(Photo: Michael Ochs Archives / Getty Images)

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Culture

Try This Quiz and See How Much You Know About Jane Austen

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2 days ago

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December 16, 2025

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Try This Quiz and See How Much You Know About Jane Austen

“Window seat with garden view / A perfect nook to read a book / I’m lost in my Jane Austen…” sings Kristin Chenoweth in “The Girl in 14G” — what could be more ideal? Well, perhaps showing off your literary knowledge and getting a perfect score on this week’s super-size Book Review Quiz Bowl honoring the life, work and global influence of Jane Austen, who turns 250 today. In the 12 questions below, tap or click your answers to the questions. And no matter how you do, scroll on to the end, where you’ll find links to free e-book versions of her novels — and more.

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Culture

Revisiting Jane Austen’s Cultural Impact for Her 250th Birthday

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2 days ago

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December 16, 2025

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Revisiting Jane Austen’s Cultural Impact for Her 250th Birthday

On Dec. 16, 1775, a girl was born in Steventon, England — the seventh of eight children — to a clergyman and his wife. She was an avid reader, never married and died in 1817, at the age of 41. But in just those few decades, Jane Austen changed the world.

Her novels have had an outsize influence in the centuries since her death. Not only are the books themselves beloved — as sharply observed portraits of British society, revolutionary narrative projects and deliciously satisfying romances — but the stories she created have so permeated culture that people around the world care deeply about Elizabeth Bennet and Mr. Darcy, even if they’ve never actually read “Pride and Prejudice.”

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With her 250th birthday this year, the Austen Industrial Complex has kicked into high gear with festivals, parades, museum exhibits, concerts and all manner of merch, ranging from the classily apt to the flamboyantly absurd. The words “Jane mania” have been used; so has “exh-Aust-ion.”

How to capture this brief life, and the blazing impact that has spread across the globe in her wake? Without further ado: a mere sampling of the wealth, wonder and weirdness Austen has brought to our lives. After all, your semiquincentennial doesn’t come around every day.

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By ‘A Lady’

Jane Austen’s House, Chawton, England

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Austen published just four novels in her lifetime: “Sense and Sensibility” (1811), “Pride and Prejudice” (1813), “Mansfield Park” (1814) and “Emma” (1815). All of them were published anonymously, with the author credited simply as “A Lady.” (If you’re in New York, you can see this first edition for yourself at the Grolier Club through Feb. 14.)

Where the Magic Happened

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Janice Chung for The New York Times

Placed near a window for light, this diminutive walnut table was, according to family lore, where the author did much of her writing. It is now in the possession of the Jane Austen Society.

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An Iconic Accessory

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Jane Austen’s House, Chawton, England

Few of Austen’s personal artifacts remain, contributing to the author’s mystique. One of them is this turquoise ring, which passed to her sister-in-law and then her niece after her death. In 2012, the ring was put up for auction and bought by the “American Idol” champion Kelly Clarkson. This caused quite a stir in England; British officials were loath to let such an important cultural artifact leave the country’s borders. Jane Austen’s House, the museum now based in the writer’s Hampshire home, launched a crowdfunding campaign to Bring the Ring Home and bought the piece from Clarkson. The real ring now lives at the museum; the singer has a replica.

Austen Onscreen

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Since 1940, when Austen had a bit of a moment and Greer Garson and Laurence Olivier starred in MGM’s rather liberally reinterpreted “Pride and Prejudice,” there have been more than 20 international adaptations of Austen’s work made for film and TV (to say nothing of radio). From the sublime (Emma Thompson’s Oscar-winning “Sense and Sensibility”) to the ridiculous (the wholly gratuitous 2022 remake of “Persuasion”), the high waists, flickering firelight and double weddings continue to provide an endless stream of debate fodder — and work for a queen’s regiment of British stars.

Jane Goes X-Rated

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Tony Cenicola/The New York Times

The rumors are true: XXX Austen is a thing. “Jane Austen Kama Sutra,” “Pride and Promiscuity: The Lost Sex Scenes of Jane Austen” and enough slash fic and amateur porn to fill Bath’s Assembly Rooms are just the start. Purists may never recover.

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A Lady Unmasked

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Jane Austen’s House, Chawton, England

Austen’s final two completed novels, “Northanger Abbey” and “Persuasion,” were published after her death. Her brother Henry, who oversaw their publication, took the opportunity to give his sister the recognition he felt she deserved, revealing the true identity of the “Lady” behind “Pride and Prejudice,” “Emma,” etc. in a biographical note. “The following pages are the production of a pen which has already contributed in no small degree to the entertainment of the public,” he wrote, extolling his sister’s imagination, good humor and love of dancing. Still, “no accumulation of fame would have induced her, had she lived, to affix her name to any productions of her pen.”

Wearable Tributes

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Tony Cenicola/The New York Times

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It is a truth universally acknowledged that a Jane Austen fan wants to find other Jane Austen fans, and what better way to advertise your membership in that all-inclusive club than with a bit of merch — from the subtle and classy to the gloriously obscene.

The Austen Literary Universe

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Elizabeth Renstrom for The New York Times

On the page, there is no end to the adventures Austen and her characters have been on. There are Jane Austen mysteries, Jane Austen vampire series, Jane Austen fantasy adventures, Jane Austen Y.A. novels and, of course, Jane Austen romances, which transpose her plots to a remote Maine inn, a Greenwich Village penthouse and the Bay Area Indian American community, to name just a few. You can read about Austen-inspired zombie hunters, time-traveling hockey players, Long Island matchmakers and reality TV stars, or imagine further adventures for some of your favorite characters. (Even the obsequious Mr. Collins gets his day in the sun.)

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A Botanical Homage

Created in 2017 to mark the 200th anniversary of Austen’s death, the “Jane Austen” rose is characterized by its intense orange color and light, sweet perfume. It is bushy, healthy and easy to grow.

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Aunt Jane

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Jane Austen’s House, Chawton, England

Hoping to cement his beloved aunt’s legacy, Austen’s nephew James Edward Austen-Leigh published this biography — a rather rosy portrait based on interviews with family members — five decades after her death. The book is notable not only as the source (biased though it may be) of many of the scant facts we know about her life, but also for the watercolor portrait by James Andrews that serves as its frontispiece. Based on a sketch by Cassandra, this depiction of Jane is softer and far more winsome than the original: Whether that is due to a lack of skill on her sister’s part or overly enthusiastic artistic license on Andrews’s, this is the version of Austen most familiar to people today.

Cultural Currency

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In 2017, the Bank of England released a new 10-pound note featuring Andrews’s portrait of Austen, as well as a line from “Pride and Prejudice”: “I declare after all there is no enjoyment like reading!” Austen is the third woman — other than the queen — to be featured on British currency, and the only one currently in circulation.

In the Trenches

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During World War I and World War II, British soldiers were given copies of Austen’s works. In his 1924 story “The Janeites,” Rudyard Kipling invoked the grotesque contrasts — and the strange comfort — to be found in escaping to Austen’s well-ordered world amid the horrors of trench warfare. As one character observes, “There’s no one to touch Jane when you’re in a tight place.”

Baby Janes

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You’re never too young to learn to love Austen — or that one’s good opinion, once lost, may be lost forever.

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The Austen Industrial Complex

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Elizabeth Renstrom for The New York Times

Maybe you’ve not so much as seen a Jane Austen meme, let alone read one of her novels. No matter! Need a Jane Austen finger puppet? Lego? Magnetic poetry set? Lingerie? Nameplate necklace? Plush book pillow? License plate frame? Bath bomb? Socks? Dog sweater? Whiskey glass? Tarot deck? Of course you do! And you’re in luck: What a time to be alive.

Around the Globe

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Goucher College Special Collections & Archives, Alberta H. and Henry G. Burke Collection; via The Morgan Library & Museum

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Austen’s novels have been translated into more than 40 languages, including Polish, Finnish, Chinese and Farsi. There are active chapters of the Jane Austen Society, her 21st-century fan club, throughout the world.

Playable Persuasions

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In Austen’s era, no afternoon tea was complete without a rousing round of whist, a trick-taking card game played in two teams of two. But should you not be up on your Regency amusements, you can find plenty of contemporary puzzles and games with which to fill a few pleasant hours, whether you’re piecing together her most beloved characters or using your cunning and wiles to land your very own Mr. Darcy.

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#SoJaneAusten

The wild power of the internet means that many Austen moments have taken on lives of their own, from Colin Firth’s sopping wet shirt and Matthew Macfadyen’s flexing hand to Mr. Collins’s ode to superlative spuds and Mr. Knightley’s dramatic floor flop. The memes are fun, yes, but they also speak to the universality of Austen’s writing: More than two centuries after her books were published, the characters and stories she created are as relatable as ever.

Bonnets Fit for a Bennett

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Peter Flude for The New York Times

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For this summer’s Grand Regency Costumed Promenade in Bath, England — as well as the myriad picnics, balls, house parties, dinners, luncheons, teas and fetes that marked the anniversary — seamstresses, milliners, mantua makers and costume warehouses did a brisk business, attiring the faithful in authentic Regency finery. And that’s a commitment: A bespoke, historically accurate bonnet can easily run to hundreds of dollars.

Most Ardently, Jane

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The Morgan Library & Museum

Austen was prolific correspondent, believed to have written thousands of letters in her lifetime, many to her sister, Cassandra. But in an act that has frustrated biographers for centuries, upon Jane’s death, Cassandra protected her sister’s privacy — and reputation? — by burning almost all of them, leaving only about 160 intact, many heavily redacted. But what survives is filled with pithy one-liners. To wit: “I do not want people to be very agreeable, as it saves me the trouble of liking them a great deal.”

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Stage and Sensibility

Austen’s works have been adapted numerous times for the stage. Some plays (and musicals) hew closely to the original text, while others — such as Emily Breeze’s comedic riff on “Pride and Prejudice,” “Are the Bennet Girls OK?”, which is running at New York City’s West End Theater through Dec. 21 — use creative license to explore ideas of gender, romance and rage through a contemporary lens.

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Austen 101

Tony Cenicola/The New York Times

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Austen remains a reliable fount of academic scholarship; recent conference papers have focused on the author’s enduring global reach, the work’s relationship to modern intersectionality, digital humanities and “Jane Austen on the Cheap.” And as one professor told our colleague Sarah Lyall of the Austen amateur scholarship hive, “Woe betide the academic who doesn’t take them seriously.”

W.W.J.D.

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Tony Cenicola/The New York Times

When facing problems — of etiquette, romance, domestic or professional turmoil — sometimes the only thing to do is ask: What would Jane do?

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Culture

I Think This Poem Is Kind of Into You

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7 days ago

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December 11, 2025

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I Think This Poem Is Kind of Into You

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By A.O. Scott

A.O. Scott, a critic at large for the Book Review, recorded the poem that appears in this piece.

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A famous poet once observed that it is difficult to get the news from poems. The weather is a different story. April showers, summer sunshine and — maybe especially — the chill of winter provide an endless supply of moods and metaphors. Poets like to practice a double meteorology, looking out at the water and up at the sky for evidence of interior conditions of feeling.

The inner and outer forecasts don’t always match up. This short poem by Louise Glück starts out cold and stays that way for most of its 11 lines.

And then it bursts into flame.

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“Early December in Croton-on-Hudson” comes from Glück’s debut collection, “Firstborn,” which was published in 1968. She wrote the poems in it between the ages of 18 and 23, but they bear many of the hallmarks of her mature style, including an approach to personal matters — sex, love, illness, family life — that is at once uncompromising and elusive. She doesn’t flinch. She also doesn’t explain.

Here, for example, Glück assembles fragments of experience that imply — but also obscure — a larger narrative. It’s almost as if a short story, or even a novel, had been smashed like a glass Christmas ornament, leaving the reader to infer the sphere from the shards.

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We know there was a couple with a flat tire, and that a year later at least one of them still has feelings for the other. It’s hard not to wonder if they’re still together, or where they were going with those Christmas presents.

To some extent, those questions can be addressed with the help of biographical clues. The version of “Early December in Croton-on-Hudson” that appeared in The Atlantic in 1967 was dedicated to Charles Hertz, a Columbia University graduate student who was Glück’s first husband. They divorced a few years later. Glück, who died in 2023, was never shy about putting her life into her work.

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Louise Glück in 1975.

Gerard Malanga

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But the poem we are reading now is not just the record of a passion that has long since cooled. More than 50 years after “Firstborn,” on the occasion of receiving the Nobel Prize for literature, Glück celebrated the “intimate, seductive, often furtive or clandestine” relations between poets and their readers. Recalling her childhood discovery of William Blake and Emily Dickinson, she declared her lifelong ardor for “poems to which the listener or reader makes an essential contribution, as recipient of a confidence or an outcry, sometimes as co-conspirator.”

That’s the kind of poem she wrote.

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“Confidence” can have two meanings, both of which apply to “Early December in Croton-on-Hudson.” Reading it, you are privy to a secret, something meant for your ears only. You are also in the presence of an assertive, self-possessed voice.

Where there is power, there’s also risk. To give voice to desire — to whisper or cry “I want you” — is to issue a challenge and admit vulnerability. It’s a declaration of conquest and a promise of surrender.

What happens next? That’s up to you.

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