Bummer of a Summer for Red Sox, Yankees

E-mails keep coming in about the signing of Willie Mays by New York Giant scout Eddie Montague.

Reader Jim Mallon of San Luis Obispo says, “Adding my two cents to the Mays debate, I refer you to David Halberstam’s ‘Summer of ‘49’:

“ ‘In 1949, both the Boston Red Sox and New York Yankees, despite recommendations from their scouts, failed to sign one of the ablest if not the ablest black player of the coming era: Willie Mays of the Birmingham Black Barons. The Yankees sent Bill McCorry, who was a Southerner, to scout him.... He reported back that Mays couldn’t hit the curveball.... The Red Sox sent in Larry Woodall, their pitching coach, a Southerner. Woodall, not surprisingly, reported that Mays was not the Red Sox type.

“ ‘The Red Sox had lost the chance to have Willie Mays play alongside Ted Williams.’ ”

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Trivia time: Mays played 22 major league seasons. How many times was he in the All-Star game?

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Piper knew: Gaylon White of Kingsport, Tenn., e-mailed to say that before the Red Sox passed on Mays, they had ignored Lorenzo “Piper” Davis, the player-manager of the Birmingham Black Barons in 1948 when the 16-year-old Mays broke into professional baseball.

And White, citing what can be heard on a video documentary at the Civil Rights Institute in Birmingham, Ala., passed along this story Davis tells in his own words about the Black Barons’ reaction when young Mays first made the starting lineup:

“I said, ‘Here’s the lineup today, men. Willie Mays is playing center field.’ After that, I heard ‘em talking. One of ‘em said, ‘What is wrong with Piper? He’s gone crazy, puttin’ [him] out there in center field?’ I said, ‘Anybody that don’t like it, you know what you can do.’ ”

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They’re serious: CNBC announced this week that John McEnroe would have his own talk show in a few months. It will follow Dennis Miller’s new talk show, which premieres Jan. 26.

Considering the dour personalities of McEnroe and Miller, CNBC could call the time block “Happy Hour.”

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It hurts so bad: Magic Johnson, on TNT, talking about Karl Malone’s reaction to his injury: “The night he got injured, I’ve never seen a guy actually cry because he was injured and couldn’t go out there. He wanted to go out there so bad and he fought us tooth and nail not to put him on the injured list.... We told him the season is not about now, it is about May and June.”

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Slow starter: “The golf season is only one tournament old,” Ron Rapoport of the Chicago Sun-Times wrote, “and already Tiger Woods is in a slump.”

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Trivia answer: Mays played in 24 All-Star games from 1954-73 (two All-Star games were played each year from 1959-62).

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And finally: From David Letterman’s “Top Ten Signs You’ve Been on the Campaign Trail Too Long,” read by Democratic presidential candidate Dick Gephardt: “You’ve hired Pete Rose to manage your campaign funds.”

Larry Stewart can be reached at larry.stewart@latimes.com.