Giants baseball fans got to “Say Hey” to a legend and celebrate San Francisco’s World Series win yesterday.
A group of lucky fans got to spend yesterday morning with the Commissioner’s Trophy, Giants president and CEO Larry Baer, general manager Brian Sabean — and Hall of Famer Willie Mays at the Westin Hotel in Midtown.
“I am always a Giant,” Mays said. “The Giants are all over, we’re in New York, we’re in San Francisco. We’re everywhere. This organization is something special.”
Mays addressed both the New York Giants Historical Society and the New York Giants Preservation Society and received standing ovations from the crowd on five separate occasions.
The Hall of Fame outfielder played with the Giants for 20 seasons, six of them while the team was in the Big Apple, and played parts of two seasons with the Mets.
“I’d like to say thank you to New York,” he said. “You don’t have to say New York and San Francisco are separate. You’re wearing a uniform that says Giants. It doesn’t matter where you are.”
Mays reminisced about his remarkable playing career, during which he amassed 660 home runs, but also touched on current events in the baseball world, most notably the recent Hall of Fame voting ballot.
“I think you have to look at the writers,” Mays said. “At least every year … someone is good enough to get in, but that’s not my choice. The Hall of Fame relies on people coming up there and spending money, so I think every year someone should get in.”
The gathering was the second time in three years the Giants were able to give back to their New York fan base. The team brought the World Series Trophy to the city in a similar event following the 2010 season.
“There’s a lot of orange and black in the room, which is fantastic,” Baer said. “We feel like we never left New York. We want to honor [the years we spent in New York] because it feels like we’re baseball royalty.”
* Sabean all but confirmed closer Brian Wilson would not be returning to the Giants this season.
“The only way I can see him coming back is [on a low-base, high-incentive contract], but this time I see him more in the mindset to do that with somebody else,” Sabean said.
The Mets are among several teams that have expressed interest in Wilson.