2 days ago
- Sport
- San Francisco Chronicle
Why the Willie Mays memorabilia auction is a missed opportunity for the Giants
Willie Mays liked to keep stuff.
All his friends agree on that. Mays left us just over a year ago, on June 18, when he sauntered off into that mythical cornfield, but he left a lot of himself behind. Trophies, rings, gloves, jerseys, plaques, photos and more.
'Willie kept everything,' says Rick Swig, who was close pals with Mays for decades.
Lumped together, all this Mays stuff, from an exotic sports car to a Presidential Medal of Freedom, would fill a fantastic museum, honoring the man every San Franciscan will tell you is the greatest ballplayer who ever played.
Sadly, that won't happen.
All of Mays' treasures and trinkets are going on the auction block.
Barring a miracle, the auction will be like a mighty puff on a dandelion, scattering MVP trophies and Gold Gloves to the wind.
The live auction is Sept. 27, at a warehouse near Oracle Park. The lesser items will be auctioned off online.
A few of the goodies (estimated top bid range):
• 1954 New York Giants World Series ring, which Mays often wore ($500,000-$1 million)
• NL MVP trophies from '54 and '65 ($250,000-$500,000)
• Presidential Medal of Freedom ($50,000-$100,000)
• Fielder's glove, circa '55 ($75,000-$150,000)
• Gold Gloves, and Mays won 12 (!) of these babies ($50,000-$100,000 each)
• Hall of Fame ring ($100,000-$300,000)
• 1977 Stutz Blackhawk VI sports car ($50,000-$100,000). More on this item in a moment.
You're picturing a very cool Willie Mays Museum, right? Acres of eye candy for the baseball soul of old-timers and kids alike.
But instead of Willie's treasures winding up in a glorious museum, more likely they will become conversation pieces at rich guys' dinner parties, guests slurping martinis and admiring the bauble in its lonely perch on a teak mantel.
The good news is that, unlike when so many sports greats sell off their treasures as a financial necessity, this is no desperation fire sale. Mays lived comfortably and enjoyed his treasures until the end. All the money from the auction goes to the Say Hey Foundation, to improve the lives of needy kids.
Oh, Mays loved kids. One of the greatest sports photos of all time is Mays, a young superstar for the New York Giants, dressed in natty sportswear, playing stickball on a Harlem street with a group of kids.
It's not clear whether Mays was a hoarder by nature, but it's likely that he kept all this stuff because he knew it would someday be converted into cash to power his foundation.
Wouldn't it have been cool, though, if the San Francisco Giants had bought the mountain of Maysabilia and opened a Willie Museum?
For years there has been talk, inside the organization and out, about a museum — devoted to Mays, or to the whole team. Nothing has come of all the talk, other than last season's pop-up exhibition across the street from the ballpark — the Willie Mays Say Hey Experience.
That pop-up, which drew fair traffic, was mostly video and photos, with limited memorabilia. The Giants tell me they have a lot of team memorabilia, including a fair amount of Mays stuff, in a warehouse near the ballpark. They break out some of it from time to time for ballpark exhibits, but the idea of an actual museum is still on some back burner.
The Giants had recent talks with the Mays folks about buying some of Willie's treasures and opening a museum, but from what I hear, the team feels it is a challenge to find a permanent space close to the ballpark that would be affordable. Also, buying prime goodies from Mays' stash would cost a big lump of dough.
This plays into the narrative of the Giants' primary ownership being overly budget-conscious.
It's purely my speculation, but maybe the Say Hey Foundation didn't want to wait forever; they opted to auction off the treasure trove now because there are kids who could use a helping hand now.
If someone had unlimited funds, he or she could buy Mays' old home in Atherton and open it as-is, as a Willie Museum. The neighbors wouldn't mind; their kids got autographed baseballs from Willie every Halloween.
Rick Swig spent a lot of time at Mays' home. Swig's grandfather, Ben, was a San Francisco hotel tycoon who helped Mays feel at home when the Giants moved here in '58. In recent decades, Rick has been one of Say Hey's biggest fundraisers, and he considered Mays a dear friend. To Swig, a world-class collector himself, Mays' home was Disneyland.
'Every time I was there, I'd look at the walls of his living room, his den, another den out by his pool, or his bedroom, I'd go, 'Oh, my god; oh, wow; gee whiz.' … He would open up these drawers, 'You ever seen this? ' Not to show off, and it would be an oh-my-god.'
I was in Mays' home a couple of times, got only as far as the long entry hallway, which was like the Louvre.
Every bit of wall space in the home, Swig says, was covered with photos and plaques and awards. Bags of swag filled Mays' four-car garage, and an equally large storage room he built behind the garage.
Not in the Atherton garage, but possibly stored at Mays' home in Phoenix, is that '77 Stutz. Mays was a car guy; mostly he drove Caddies, but the hot celebrity ride in the '70s was the Stutz. It was a Pontiac Grand Prix muscle car engine and chassis, topped with a handcrafted Italian body and luxe interior.
About 600 were made. Elvis Presley owned the first Stutz, beating out Frank Sinatra for the honor. Paul McCartney drove one along Penny Lane.
It's just a car, but it is so Willie — powerful and sleek, symbolic of the man who, quietly, lived like the superstar he was. Elvis' Stutz sold for $297,000.
But even the small stuff has great historical and sentimental value.
'I hope whoever ends up with this material is generous enough to share it with the public, in some sort of museum fashion,' says Swig.
That seems unlikely. A million items could go to a million different bidders.
The Giants might get in on the bidding. I alerted Reggie Jackson, an avid car collector who says he might kick the tires on the Stutz.
There's a sadness to this auction, but at least the event will have Mays' blessing.
'Willie's still with us, by the way,' Swig says. 'I'm talking about him in the present tense. He's using this material to fulfill his pledge to support children.'
So if you are at the auction and you are hesitating to raise your paddle, and feel a nudge at your elbow, don't be surprised.
