Willie Mays has been fighting back tears a lot lately.
In December, he was overcome when Giants president Peter Magowan surprised everyone at the groundbreaking of Pacific Bell Park by disclosing that the new stadium's official address will be 1 Willie Mays Plaza.
| And yesterday, a few tears almost came when Magowan unveiled
a foot-tall model of the nine-foot statue of Mays that will grace the main
entrance to the new ballpark in China Basin.
Magowan also said the team is giving in to fans and will ask the city to change the new stadium's address to 24 Willie Mays Plaza, to commemorate the greatest Giant's old number. |
Willie Mays checks out the artist's model of the statue of him that will
grace the main entrance of the Giants' new stadium. |
He promised more tears in exactly 595 days, when the 42,000-seat stadium opens in April 2000 and the real statue takes its place among 24 date palm trees at the park's main entrance at Third and King streets.
"I will be more emotional when you see the statue in front of the stadium,"
he assured reporters after yesterday's ceremony.
| The Giants figure the statue will be a popular draw, a
spot where fans will meet and have their pictures taken with the image
of the Giant who hit 660 home runs and was a 20-time All-Star.
Mays was quite taken with the clay model of the bronze sculpture. The work by William Behrends of North Carolina shows Mays in the heat of action, dropping his bat after a picture-perfect swing, on his way to first base. No. 24 is clearly visible on his back, and the SF shows on his hat. "I've never visualized myself hitting a home run or hitting a ball until I looked at this," the Hall of Fame center fielder-turned art critic said after giving the model a close examination. "I'm saying, 'What happened to the ball? |
The artist's model of the statue that will be in place when the stadium
opens in April of 2000. |
Mays swore the image looked just like pictures he has seen of his 3,000th hit at Candlestick Park against the Montreal Expos in 1970. He planned to check when he got home yesterday.
Behrends came out from North Carolina for the unveiling of his work,
which he will spend the next year and a half completing.
| "Any sculptor would consider the opportunity to create
a sculpture of the great Willie Mays, of whom I've been a fan since I was
a Little Leaguer in the 1950s, for such a beautiful new ballpark in the
city of San Francisco to be as good as it gets," Behrends said.
At the groundbreaking in December, Magowan indicated he might like the sculpture to depict "the Catch," Mays' miraculous over-the-shoulder grab of Vic Wertz's long drive in the 1954 World Series. |
Mays was pleased and flattered as he toured the construction site of the
Giants new ballpark. |
But Behrends and Mays pointed out a practical problem with that idea.
"The catch wouldn't be appropriate. The reason is you'd have to be backwards. That means you're back end is going to be sticking out coming into the ballpark," Mays said.
"There are a number of requisites for the site. People will be all around the sculpture," Behrends pointed out. "As you walk around it, there are interesting things to see from all sides and it has movement."
Magowan selected Behrends from several artists who wanted the commission.
"We believe it will be a great piece of art," Magowan said.
Mays is "the best player I ever saw and he's the major reason that over 45 years ago I fell in love with the game of baseball," Magowan said. "We wanted this statue to commemorate that incomparable combination of power and speed and style and grace and exuberance for the game that he played so well."
Team officials wouldn't disclose how much the sculpture will cost. Magowan and his wife, Debby, will pay for it.
Behrends has sculpted an eclectic mix of figures. He did a bronze of golf great Ben Hogan for downtown Augusta, Ga., where the Masters Tournament is played each year. Coming up is a statue of Senator Strom Thurmond that will be placed in front of the state Capitol in Columbia, S.C.
Magowan said the thing he will always remember about Mays is his zest for baseball.
"I treasure his enthusiasm for the game," the owner said. "It's something I think maybe we don't see enough of with the current crop of today's players.
"Today's ballplayers just don't seem to be enjoying themselves as much as I would hope they would," he added.