SCOTTSDALE, Ariz. (AP) -- The Say Hey Kid is saying nothing to Giants
replacement
players.
Willie Mays is keeping his distance this spring, giving autographs instead
of advice to players he
doesn't even recognize.
"These kids here, I don't know who they are. I can't joke with any of
them," Mays says, sitting at a
table in the middle of the San Francisco clubhouse. "And these guys
are going to be gone when the
regular guys come back."
In past years, the 63-year-old Mays has spent spring training chatting
with players such as his
godson, Barry Bonds. He'll usually assess a few prospects, and offer
tips to the major leaguers.
This spring, the Hall of Famer is doing none of that. He stops by Scottsdale
Stadium in the morning
for a cup of soup, then quickly disappears when the replacement players
show up.
Mays hit 660 home runs and batted .302 during a glorious 22-year career.
He's been a Giants
special assistant since 1986, but says he won't give hitting tips or
teach his basket catch to the guys
wearing San Francisco uniforms this spring.
"That's not my job," he says. "I don't want the regular players to say,
'What are you doing? You're
going against the union."'
Like the striking players, Mays is not wearing a uniform this spring.
He usually wears his retired No.
24 during training camp, but on Tuesday he wore a gray shirt with the
words "Say Hey" stitched in
red on his left sleeve. Instead of a Giants cap, he wore a black cap
from Bally's Park Place casino.
He'll go out to dinner with Giants owner Peter Magowan and manager Dusty
Baker. He'll sit in the
clubhouse telling stories about the New York Giants and the Birmingham
Barons, the Negro Leagues
team with which he turned pro as a teen-ager.
But he never steps on the field or even watches the exhibition games
from the stands. By game time,
he's back in his hotel room trying to find a basketball game on TV.
Though Mays still has massive arms and a powerful physique, he can't
even play golf this spring while
he heals from surgery on both eyes. So, like most fans, he spends a
lot of his time wondering when
normalcy will return to baseball.
"It's just kind of frustrating, because we don't know what's going on.
It's just so complicated to try to
explain to people what this is all about," he says. "This is just a
situation you have to deal with. You
just have to make the best of it."
For Mays, perhaps the greatest player of his time, that means staying
in the shadows and waiting for
the strike to end.
"There ain't nothing to do here. I come here in the morning, but I have
no regular thing to do," he
says. "It's difficult now. You come here every day and hope it's going
to be over."