Latest news with #WillieMays
Forbes
5 days ago
- Sport
- Forbes
Willie Mays Personal Collection To Highlight September Auction
Willie Mays, who played stickball on the street with New York kids between games with the Giants, ... More will help them even more with the posthumous auction of his personal memorabilia. Just days before the Baseball Hall of Fame inducts its Class of 2025, Hunt Auctions has announced that the personal collection of Willie Mays will be unveiled for the first time at the National Sports Collectors Convention. Mays, whom many historians rate as the greatest player of the postwar period, asked in his will that proceeds from the auction provide funding for education, training, and health services for youth via the Say Hey! Foundation he founded in 2000. The late superstar, who spent most of his career with the Giants in New York and San Francisco, hit 660 lifetime home runs, winning two MVP awards, a World Series ring, and 24 trips to the All-Star game. The auction of his memorabilia will take place Sept. 27 at the King Street Warehouse adjacent to Oracle Park, home of the Giants. A member of the Baseball Hall of Fame since 1979, Mays was memorialized in the song Willie, Mickey, and the Duke, which also saluted fellow centerfielders Mickey Mantle and Duke Snider. At one time, all three played for New York teams. Fans will now be able to see and bid on Mays items and artifacts and receive free appraisals of other sports memorabilia they own from Hunt Auctions experts. This catch made by Willie Mays during the 1954 World Series was one of the best defensive plays in ... More baseball history. Up for auction are the 1954 Mays World Series ring that he won with the New York Giants, who upset the favored Cleveland Indians, and his 1954 and 1965 Most Valuable Player Awards. Projected revenue from the auction of the ring is $500,000-$1,000,000 while each of the MVPs is expected to draw $500,000, according to Hunt Auctions organizers. His 1954 National League Silver Bat, presented after he led the National League is hitting, is valued at $200,000-$400,000 while his Presidential Medal of Freedom could sell for $50,000-$100,000. Also on sale are the outfielder's 1955 Willie Mays model glove, his 1963 All-Star Game MVP award, and many of the multiple Gold Gloves he won for defensive excellence. His Hall of Fame Induction ring is also included in the upcoming Hunt Auction. A San Francisco Giants warmup jacket and rare 1962 Sultan of Swat award are also going to the auction block. According to David Hunt, president of the Pennsylvania auction house, 'We are deeply humbled and grateful to Willie Mays for having been selected to represent this important offering of his personal collection. 'Willie embodies the American success story from his humble beginnings in Fairfield, Alabama through his ascension to become the greatest all-around player in the history of the game of baseball. 'Perhaps more impressively, Willie lived a life of service matched by very few. Whether sharing his knowledge of the game with young players or helping underserved communities to better their lives he was fervently committed to help those whose shoes he once occupied so many years ago. Willie has ensured his generosity will continue long into the future with the wonderful work that his Say Hey! Foundation has accomplished with the proceeds of this auction going to help further that good work.' A five-tools player, Willie Mays had two 30/30 seasons — the first in National League history. Mays began his baseball career with the Birmingham Black Barons of the Negro American League in 1948, then signed with the New York Giants two years later. He was National League Rookie of the Year in 1951, when he helped the Giants win the pennant in a dramatic pennant race with the Brooklyn Dodgers. Three years later, he led the team to a world championship over the Cleveland Indians. The Giants also won a pennant in 1962 but lost a seven-game World Series to the New York Yankees. Among other accomplishments, Mays won two batting titles, hit four home runs in a game, and the first two 30/30 seasons in National League history. He had a .301 batting average and 3,283 hits over a career that lasted 23 seasons. He also made a hit with the kids of New York when he joined them on the street for impromptu stickball games during his East Coast career with the Giants. Known as 'the Say Hey Kid' because he used the greet writers and teammates with the word 'hey,' Mays not only made the Hall of Fame but also the All-Century Team picked during the 1969 Baseball Centennial. 'His one instruction to Dave Hunt at Hunt Auctions was to make this the best auction ever to help those kids,' said Jeff Bleich, a Mays friend who chairs the Say Hey! Foundation. "For all of his extraordinary achievements as a baseball player, Willie Mays wanted his enduring legacy to be helping children. He preserved his most treasured awards so that one day he could pay it forward. He wanted to share these items with his fans so that together they could raise as much as possible to support other kids starting out in life the way he had.' Mays grew up in poverty and attended a segregated school in Birmingham but parlayed his baseball ability into a career that will live in memory. His top salary was $165,000, the amount he earned while concluded his career with the New York Mets in 1963 – years before free agency greatly increased the salary scales for players. Commercial endorsements helped him earn considerably more. The first public display of the Willie Mays collection will occur at the National Sports Collectors Convention in Chicago, IL between July 30th and August 3rd, 2025.
San Francisco Chronicle
13-07-2025
- 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.
Boston Globe
13-07-2025
- Sport
- Boston Globe
Growing status of Red Sox prospect Jhostynxon Garcia trending to a promising future
Garcia's ascent has been rapid, and his participation in a showcase event for the top prospects in baseball reinforced that sense. Advertisement 'You can't put a name on the sort of hard work I've been doing,' said Garcia, who went 0 for 2 with a pair of strikeouts as the AL prospects fell to their National League counterparts, 4-2. 'Just a few years ago, I was at a very low level, and now with all the work that I've put in, especially being where I'm at right now, it's very special.' Get Starting Point A guide through the most important stories of the morning, delivered Monday through Friday. Enter Email Sign Up When the Red Sox signed Garcia as a 16-year-old out of Venezuela in 2019, he distinguished himself on the baseball field. His defensive style while gliding in the outfield and often catching the ball in stride at his hip — 'Like Willie Mays,' enthused Garcia — commanded notice. 'It's not even flair. It's being extremely confident. He was a natural defender,' said Red Sox assistant GM Eddie Romero. 'That — and he's one of the few guys that we saw hit a ball out of one of the professional stadiums – [caught the Sox' attention]. That also helps.' Advertisement Yet Garcia's hints of offensive ability as an amateur rarely showed up in games at the start of his professional career, and he moved deliberately through the lower levels of the minors. After he hit .230/.329/.374 in Single A Salem in 2023, he repeated the level to open the 2024 campaign. 'This guy was the fourth outfielder in Salem at the start of last year,' Red Sox farm director Brian Abraham recently observed with a shake of the head. But when the Sox started offering year-round training for prospects in Fort Myers, Fla., after the 2023 season, Garcia became an eager participant. He added significant strength in the 2023-24 offseason and also made some mechanical adjustments to drive the ball more frequently. That set the stage for a breakthrough season in 2024 — he hit .286/.356/.536 with 23 homers in a year split across Salem, High A Greenville, and Double A Portland. He tapped into previously unexplored power. This year, he's focused on improving his swing decisions, which have helped him to hit .277/.365/.472 with 12 homers — including a .292/.373/.532 line with nine longballs in 40 games since his late-May promotion to Triple A Worcester. In so doing, Garcia has reinforced the impression that he's made considerable progress in his career,his reputation now preceding him. 'He is taking some pitches where I'm like, 'OK, he swung at that last year. He would chase there,'' said WooSox defensive coach Iggy Suarez, who managed Garcia last year in High A Greenville. 'I think he's starting to realize and understand what pitchers are going to do to him. Because we always say, 'Hey, as much as we do our homework on the pitchers that we're going to face, they're doing the same thing against guys like you. This isn't the first time they're going to hear about the 'Password." They know who you are.'' Advertisement Garcia seems to be thriving with his growing status. While he's not seeking attention, he also seems very comfortable as his play and style garners notice. 'He's not hotdogging either. It's not like he's [making basket catches] trying to be flashy. He just has the ability to do it,' said Suarez. 'He embraces [playing with style]. I'm not saying he craves attention, but he's okay with it. The whole 'Password' thing, he's like, 'I kind of like it.' That's cool.' Indeed, he welcomes the idea of gaining notice — with a growing sense of excitement that he has a chance to become (to the best of his knowledge) the first player from the Venezuelan state of Apure to reach the big leagues. Garcia, whose younger brother Johanfran is a catcher in the Sox system, has openly discussed planting a flag for his region since his days as an amateur. He wears an arm sleeve with the flag of the state, and describes the idea of being the first big leaguer from there as 'definitely important.' The possibility of a call-up is growing ever more real. Garcia was added to the 40-man roster last offseason, and his performance this year in the minors has given the righthanded power hitter the look of a player with a chance to contribute soon. Advertisement 'You see a guy that could go up and help all 30 clubs on both sides of the ball — on the defensive side in all three [outfield] spots, at the top of the order and middle of the order with his bat-to-ball [skills] and with his [ability to impact the ball], and on the bases as well,' said Abraham. Garcia's outlook? 'We're ready. We're ready,' he said. 'We're just waiting for the call.' Alex Speier can be reached at
San Francisco Chronicle
11-07-2025
- Sport
- San Francisco Chronicle
MLB All-Star Game is leveling up its intrigue by unveiling automated strike zone
Major League Baseball tends to come up short on planning ahead. While the Oakland A's franchise caught fire, the higher-ups just sat back and watched it burn. As ballgames crept toward midnight, it took years to institute the simple rules that changed everything. Now, all of a sudden, we will have an automatic strike zone in the game next season. That's what we're told, anyway, and the lead-up is about as informative as the trailer for 'Alien.' You don't have the slightest idea what's coming. It won't be robots in umpires' clothing, in case you've been away. Tuesday's All-Star Game will feature the Automated Ball-Strike System (ABS), a clever way of retaining the umpires but allowing pitchers, hitters and catchers to challenge — and ideally reverse — a bad call. Teams are allowed two challenges per game, but if they are correct, they're allowed to keep it. Managers have no say in the matter. The challenge must come quickly, and the digital response will be immediate. Video boards will allow fans to view the result at the same time as the teams. It really does sound quite reasonable, but why keep it under wraps? Just when everyone looked forward to ABS throughout this year's spring training, only 13 ballparks had the technology installed and many players got only a fleeting glimpse. Now it emerges from secrecy, in the All-Star Game, apparently destined for full-time use in 2026. A great number of players have experienced ABS, which has been used extensively in the minor leagues, but that's a far cry from digital responses deciding a Giants-Dodgers game in September — or the seventh game of a World Series riding on somebody's challenge. As we prepare to learn on the fly, a few things to keep in mind: • A lot of All-Stars get only one or two at-bats in the game, and it's a pretty big deal, with families and friends glued to the action. If they're called out on strikes by a terrible call in the third inning, they're bound to challenge. When the games start for real, it will be imperative to back off all such notions until the late innings, when games are in the balance. (Quick note on better times: Willie Mays came to the plate at least four times in 15 different All-Star Games. When the National League rallied for two runs in the 10th inning to win the 1961 game at Candlestick Park, the key figures in that rally were Mays, Henry Aaron, Frank Robinson and Roberto Clemente.) • Fun to think about, especially for those who deeply resent incompetent umpiring: A hitter draws a walk on four straight challenges — strikes reviewed as balls — because the blown calls were just that obvious. • Catchers are understandably upset about losing the art of 'framing' — turning errant pitches into strikes with a flick of the glove — but they can frame to their hearts' content if the opposing team is out of challenges. • Still, the whole idea behind the new wave of catching — dropping to one knee, instead of the traditional squat — is to make it easier to 'frame' pitches near the dirt. That's about to become a lost art. At the very least, with a runner on third in a crucial situation, catchers will get off that knee so they'll have a better chance to block a bouncing wild pitch with the body (instead of reaching out like an infielder for an improbable backhand stab). • In a farewell to nuance, umpires won't have the authority to offer a slightly wider strike zone to masters of control (think Greg Maddux or Tarik Skubal), or tightening it for pitchers whose lack of control becomes an annoyance. • Handy tip for hitters certain that 'strike three' was a ball: No need to fly into a rage and get yourself ejected by an overly sensitive ump. Simply tap your helmet: the designated request for a challenge. You just might get lucky. Looking elsewhere • When the Giants drafted outfielder Dakota Jordan out of Mississippi State last year, scouting reports likened his tools to Bo Jackson's: power, speed, explosiveness and a sense he could do just about anything. Assigned to begin his pro career with the Class A San Jose Giants, Jordan was hitting .303 heading into the weekend with 100 hits, nine homers, 67 RBIs and 27 stolen bases (caught just four times) in 78 games, including a 453-foot grand slam. Definitely a prospect worth following. • Snapshot from the career of pitcher Bobby Jenks, who tragically died of cancer at 44 this month: Breaking in with the White Sox in 2005, he found himself closing ballgames down the stretch and right through a World Series title. As the final two outs went down in Houston, Jenks got two great plays from his shortstop: diving headlong into the stands to catch a foul ball, then charging a slow hopper over the mound to make a bullet throw. That man was Juan Uribe, known around here as the Giants' third baseman on the 2010 champs. • Something to remember through the endless procession of batters hit on the hand: It's not always the pitcher's fault. Self-preservation is a foreign language to hitters who stand close to the plate, then dive into a pitch that might be only inches off the strike zone. 'I don't think they're even concerned about it,' Texas manager Bruce Bochy told reporters. 'There's no fear. And I mean, fully committing and going right into the pitch. Some guys just have a hard time turning out of the way.' • It's always fun to hear national writers compare big-league ballparks, with Oracle always ranked among the best. Except there's no longer a debate, not if you've seen those astonishingly gorgeous drone shots on the Giants' telecasts. The Bay, the marina, the Golden Gate Bridge, the stadium itself from angles you've never seen before — no other park comes close. • With the WNBA All-Star Game coming up on July 19, people wondered how Caitlin Clark would get along with coach Cheryl Reeve (assigned to Clark's team), who helped keep her off the U.S. Olympic team and always seems ready for a catty dismissal. They mused about Clark selecting Angel Reese as the players' draft went down, perhaps to thaw a simmering but lively rivalry. No chance. Clark suggested the teams trade coaches, which was nice for opposing captain Napheese Collier (coached by Reeve on the Minnesota Lynx) and for Clark's warm relationship with Sandy Brondello. And as the draft went down, Clark clearly wanted no part of Reese. Quite likely, the feeling was mutual. But Reese has gone out of her way to discount the 'I hate Caitlin' chatter. She seems just a bit resentful of Clark's runaway popularity. A couple of NBA comparisons come to mind: Moses Malone, like Reese, was the world's greatest rebounder. Grinding out the dirty work, he didn't get nearly the attention of his Philadelphia 76ers teammate, Julius Erving, who staged mind-blowing shows with his dunks and drives in the early '80s. And when Larry Bird and Magic Johnson broke into the NBA, 'we hated each other at the beginning,' Magic said, 'because we wanted to beat the other guy so badly. Eventually, as everyone knows, we became very close friends.' Maybe I'm naïve, but in time, I can see Clark and Reese sharing some smiles and laughter. That would be just as compelling as a feud.
San Francisco Chronicle
10-07-2025
- Sport
- San Francisco Chronicle
When did S.F. fans start chanting ‘Beat L.A.!'? We traced the battle cry to its start
Tony Bennett was still singing and the seagulls hovered over Oracle Park in their pre-feast holding pattern, when I heard the start of a familiar chant. 'Beat L.A.! Beat L.A.!' As thousands of fans shuffled down the northeast ramps, in no hurry after a 4-1 San Francisco Giants win on April 5, the three-syllable battle cry echoed against the concrete. A few fists raised in the air. 'BEAT L.A.!' The opposing team that night: the Seattle Mariners. The Los Angeles Dodgers — targets of the chant — were 2,850 miles away, playing the Philadelphia Phillies. When the Dodgers return to San Francisco on Friday for the first time in 2025, they'll face the Giants, 42,000 fans and a four-decade-old mantra that has come to define Bay Area sports fandom. Players, ballparks and entire teams come and go. But this perfect percussive call to arms endures. I've taken the communal power of 'Beat L.A.' for granted most of my life, but that walk on the Giants concourse early this year made me ponder a key question: How did it start? Could archive research pinpoint it to a season, a game or, by some miracle, a patient zero moment when the 'Beat L.A.' chant was born? The answer, it turned out, was yes. When San Francisco baseball arrived in 1958 — the Giants and Dodgers both moved from New York that year — the new Los Angeles team was already living in our heads. The Giants had Willie Mays, but the Dodgers were coming off 13 straight winning seasons, and would win three World Series in their first decade in California. Our players sold insurance in the offseason. Theirs showed up on 'The Brady Bunch.' So when the Giants won their first home game at Seals Stadium on April 14, 1958, with diminutive starter Ruben Gomez outdueling hulking Dodgers ace Don Drysdale, the response was a sign of the over-the-top atmosphere to come. 'WE MURDER THE BUMS,' the Chronicle's first post-game Giants headline read, splayed across the top of the front page in a text size equal to a moon landing or declaration of war. San Francisco's hatred of Los Angeles sports teams proliferated from there. I remember my grandmother and San Francisco-born mother in the early 1980s framing the sports rivalries as something that went far beyond the games. L.A. gave us Ronald Reagan. L.A. built a city in a desert. We're putting bricks in our toilets to conserve water, while L.A. residents take long showers. A stadium chanting 'Beat L.A.!' was catharsis, a release of those feelings of inferiority and inequity. 'Beat L.A.!' made us feel seen. We chanted 'Beat L.A.!' on the SamTrans bus to Giants games at Candlestick Park. We chanted 'Beat L.A.' on the BART pedestrian walkway to Warriors Games at the Oakland Coliseum. We chanted 'Beat L.A.' at San Francisco International Airport, in the pre-September 11 days when feral kids could walk right up to the gates, greeting Joe Montana and Ronnie Lott after their latest triumph. But it did not start in San Francisco. The 'Beat L.A.' chant can indeed be traced to its origin — born on the other side of the country in the rivalry between Larry Bird's Boston Celtics and Magic Johnson's Los Angeles Lakers. Joel Semuels was in his $19 seat on the upper deck of the Boston Garden on May 23, 1982, watching his sports life fall apart. The Celtics, with a young Bird and Kevin McHale, had won 63 games that season, the most in the NBA. But Philadelphia 76ers stars Andrew Toney and Julius Erving combined for 63 points in a Game 7 rout of the Eastern Conference Finals. As Semuels sat in the oldest arena in the league, he was thinking about air conditioning. 'Boston Garden was a barn. It was used for circuses and auto races and boxing,' Semuels said, during a spirited video call earlier this week. 'We were jealous of the Los Angeles Lakers because they had air conditioning in the fabulous Forum. They had cheerleaders. We were the lunch bucket team against Hollywood style.' With a minute left to play and the Celtics on the way to a 120-106 loss, Semuels and two friends stood up and did something unheard of in Boston: They started cheering for the opposition. 'We wanted Andrew Toney and Dr. J to beat the Lakers in the finals,' Semuels remembers. 'So we started saying, 'Beat L.A.! Beat L.A.!' and it caught on. If we couldn't win, we wanted the Sixers to win that year.' The chant became so thunderously loud, it was easily audible on the CBS broadcast. 'Do you hear the crowd chanting to the Sixers? 'Beat L.A.,'' analyst Bill Russell said. 'Beat L.A. That's great, let's listen,' play-by-play man Dick Stockton responded, as the final seconds ticked off the clock. There's something about the rhythm of the chant that was built for a packed arena. Just as some kids' names seem louder when yelled in a mall ('Matthew!' carries farther than 'Chad!' for example), those three syllables — 'Beat! Elle! Aye!,' with a short pause between each, all in one breath — are calibrated for a slightly buzzed and motivated mob to warble together with fists pumping in the air. 'It just has a cadence to it,' Semuels said. 'We noticed it right away.' 'Beat L.A.!' spread quickly that year. Sixers fans chanted it in their NBA Finals loss to the Lakers. Then it landed in San Francisco, where the Dodgers and Giants were in an improbable pennant race. Former Giants pitcher Bill Laskey, who now broadcasts the team's postgame radio show on KNBR, was a rookie from Toledo in 1982, and good friends with catcher Bob Brenly, another Ohio native. After Laskey pitched nine innings and beat Dodgers phenom Fernando Valenzuela in a summer game, he dropped a casual 'Beat L.A.' in a post game interview. Then, someone brought him a 'Beat L.A.' T-shirt with his name on it; the first documented high-profile sign of the slogan in the Bay Area. 'Brenly and I thought, 'What did we walk into?'' Laskey said. The Giants in 1982 trailed the Dodgers and Atlanta Braves for most of the summer, but had a mammoth September, winning 20 of 26 games to pull within striking distance. If they swept the Dodgers in the final three home games of the season, they would win the pennant. The Dodgers shut out the Giants 4-0 in the first game at Candlestick Park, then bombed them 15-2 in the second. The Giants were out of the playoffs, but the Dodgers needed to win the last game to advance. The Giants' hopes dashed, Laskey said he showed up to pitch that final game and found the playoff atmosphere remained. More than 47,000 fans packed the park. Before the game, Dodgers pitcher Valenzuela began gesturing at his neck and pointing at Laskey. 'He starts screaming at me in Spanish.' Laskey said. '... He said, 'You're going to choke today.' And I said 'OK.' That just fueled the fire.' On the Dodgers side, where future Giants manager Dusty Baker was starting in left field and batting third, he could see the tensions rising. '(Dodgers manager) Tommy Lasorda fanned that a little bit. He was blowing kisses at the Giants fans,' Baker remembers, laughing. 'I was like, 'Tommy, leave it alone. We've got enough people here against us.'' Los Angeles took a 2-0 lead after a Ron Cey homer in the second inning. But Laskey retired the next 15 Dodgers batters. 'Beat L.A.!' rang through the stadium in larger and larger crescendos, the Chronicle reported, until Giants second baseman Joe Morgan stepped to the plate with two outs in the seventh inning and broke a tie, knocking a three-run homer over the right field fence. Final score: 5-2. The Dodgers had lost playoff hopes on San Francisco soil. Laskey said the crowd rushed in from the stands, celebrating the Dodgers' loss. It was a victory of spite. A victory of 'Beat L.A.!' 'There was pandemonium all over the field, so the Dodgers had to come through our dugout, through the tunnel, through our clubhouse and back into their clubhouse,' Laskey said. 'And here we were in our clubhouse just screaming at these guys coming through. When manager Tommy Lasorda came in there wasn't one player who wasn't screaming at him.' The chant has been a Bay Area staple ever since. When the Warriors met the Lakers in the 1987 playoffs, the team handed out cardboard 'Beat L.A.' signs for fans. After the Warriors went down three games to none, columnist Art Spander quipped: 'So much for dreams. For Game 4, the signs should read 'WE SURRENDER.'' The Lakers in Game 4 pulled ahead 102-88 after three quarters. But Eric 'Sleepy' Floyd went 12-for-13 from the field in the fourth, scoring 29 of his 51 points as fans carried their 'Beat L.A.' signs to a 129-121 Warriors victory that endures in local sports history. Oakland A's fans chanted it against the Dodgers in the 1988 World Series. San Jose fans chanted it when the Sharks made it to the 1994 conference semi-finals. I was inspired and proud last year during Bay FC's inaugural season, when the team hosted Angel FC and the (otherwise polite) home crowd broke into a spirited 'Beat L.A.!' Our new team had arrived. After living the 'Beat L.A.!' life, I finally got to see the other side. I moved to Hollywood in 1995 for a courtroom reporting job and quickly learned (Don Draper elevator meme) the Dodgers don't think about us at all. I never heard a single 'Beat S.F.' chant from a crowd. My Giants hats mostly drew indifference. The Warriors hats drew pity. Baker, who spent eight seasons with the Dodgers and is now an ambassador for San Francisco, has seen the same. 'Maybe it was because (Los Angeles) had the weather, they had the beach, they had the population, they had the money,' he said of San Francisco's fixation. 'When I got to the Dodgers I didn't hear very much about the Giants.' And Baker has the best explanation for the lopsided animosity I've heard: For most of the first four decades of this 'rivalry,' the Giants simply weren't very good. 'We were focused on Cincinnati, Atlanta and other teams,' Baker said of the Dodgers. 'It's hard to have a rivalry when one team is so much better than the other team.' But the Giants finally arrived, winning the World Series in 2010, 2012 and 2014. More recently, the Dodgers and Giants played a fierce and dramatic 2021 division playoff. Los Angeles arrives this Friday on a six-game skid with the Giants within striking distance and inventing new and thrilling ways to win. There are signs that the rivalry may be getting, if not less intense, more civilized. Laskey remembers fights between Giants and Dodgers fans every other inning at Candlestick. Fans burning Dodgers pennants in the bleachers. Teens jumping out of the stands and rattling the outfield fence. You rarely see that now, for very good reason. But the chant remains as strong as ever. Beat L.A. is San Francisco at its grittiest. Beat L.A. is San Francisco at its most optimistic. Beat L.A. is San Francisco at its most petty. And Beat L.A. is San Francisco unified, hopeful and proud. 'The rivalry will always be there,' Laskey said. 'They'll always be thinking 'Beat L.A.!' … And when we're beating Los Angeles, we'll want to drive it into them even more.'
