With Mays, Just Seeing a Little Magic Wasn’t Always Believing

Kevin Mitchell’s bare-handed catch last week brought back memories of Willie Mays, who was just about the most exciting player of his era, what with clutch hits, dramatic baserunning and theatrical fielding.

One day in Pittsburgh, writes Bill Honig in his book series, “National League Rookies of the Year,” Mays was unable to reach across with his glove to snag a hooking line drive. So, he reached out and caught the ball with his bare hand.

Racing into the dugout after the inning, Mays was expecting a fuss over his unprecedented play. But Manager Leo Durocher had ordered the bench to remain silent. Finally, Mays said to Durocher: “Leo, didn’t you see what I did out there?”

“No,” Durocher retorted. “And you’re going to have to do it again before I believe it.”

Trivia time: What did the Dodger infield of Wes Parker, Jim Lefebvre, Maury Wills and Jim Gilliam have in common?

They’re getting punchy: Assessing toughness in the National Basketball Assn. is a difficult task, but Coach Rick Pitino of the New York Knicks is trying.

“I’ll give you this example,” he told Newsday’s Curtis G. Bunn. “Someone showed me a Rolling Stone article that quoted Rick Mahorn (of the Detroit Pistons) saying, ‘The next time we go to New York, we’re going to mess Patrick Ewing up.’ I was stunned. It was right before the game, and the first thing I did was run into the locker room to Charles (Oakley). I said, ‘I don’t know if this is just hype, but if anything happens to Patrick in the game, you get in there first.’ ”

The intimidating 6-foot-9, 260-pound Oakley maintains that his penchant for fighting is more than a front.

“Some teams will try you,” Oakley said. “You have to show them that you won’t back down from anybody at any time. Every team needs a guy like that. Now, we have a couple of guys who could force things. I’ll take credit for it if it’s given. We have a team now that whatever happens during a game, we’ll protect each other, no matter who it is.”

Whoever suggested basketball is not a physical game?

And the winner was . . . Broadcaster Lindsey Nelson was recalling NBC’s coverage of the 1955 U.S. Open golf tournament to Phil Jackman of the Baltimore Evening Sun.

“Anyway, Ben Hogan was leading and when he came in, it was presumed he would win,” Nelson recounted. “I asked if we had any extra time to wrap up, and the control people said, no, we had to be off in time for ‘the Imogene Coca Show’ to start.

“I asked around and was assured no one would catch Hogan. There was one guy, Jack Fleck, who was pretty close, but he had never finished better than 17th in a tour event. We had gone off the air ‘giving’ the tournament to Hogan when Fleck came to the 18th hole needing a birdie.

“Tom Gallery was the head of NBC Sports then and he didn’t know much about golf. Fleck drove into the rough, and I assured Gallery there was no way he’d get out of the rough and onto the green. Ping, he hit a shot up to about eight feet of the hole. Now, I assured Gallery that there was no way he’d sink the putt. Well, of course, it went in forcing a playoff the next day.

“Even though the network owned the radio and television rights to the playoff on Sunday, we didn’t do it on either. NBC just went ahead with its regular programming. You know, to this day I don’t think the network has ever corrected itself and announced that Jack Fleck won the ’55 Open.”

Trivia answer: They were all switch hitters.

To the junk yard: Alan Greenberg of the Hartford Courant wrote this eulogy to the Boston Celtics after the once-proud team was swept by the Detroit Pistons in three games in the first round of the playoffs:

“They were like a once-fine luxury car, nursing its last tank of watered-down gas on an empty desert road with no gas stations. No exit. No help.

“It was somehow fitting. Just another breakdown in a season chock full of them. Mercifully, it’s all over now. The little engine that couldn’t, because of age and an endless series of injuries, is finally and officially out of gas.”

To the head of the class: From Greg Logan of Newsday on the New York Jets’ No. 1 draft pick, Jeff Lageman of Virginia:

“If his choice of courses at Virginia means anything, Lageman may have the aggressive tendencies the Jets are seeking. The title of his anthropology class is ‘Headhunting Rituals.’ Asked if he saw any analogy to football in the course, he replied, “Yeah, a lot.”

Quotebook: U.S. soccer Coach Bob Gansler on his team’s 1-0 World Cup qualifying tournament victory over Costa Rica: “It was important (but) the fate of the human world did not depend on it.”