Just watched The Catch video several times and my bad, there is a warning track, but a very narrow one. It wasn't visible in the still photos, but the TV cameras were shot at a different angle so if you're the former groundskeeper of the Polo Grounds my apologies and congratulations on being 140 years old. Willie winds up on the ground right next to the wall, so still a great catch either way.
Reading some of the comments (always a mistake) in the video of The Catch, and while most commenters recognize its greatness, one guy (there's always at least one) claims Jim Edmonds made multiple similar and better catches. He supports his argument by saying The Catch is the only one we ever see of Willie Mays, so he obviously never had another play like it, while Edmonds did it many times. He even claimed Mays likely was playing out of position. smh P.S. Thanks for the link to the Glanville article.
There's always someone willing to tell you the Beatles were overrated or Martin Scorsese's a hack, but Jim Edmond's making some great catches (and he did) doesn't make the Mays catch worse. You might see fewer great catches by Mays because so many of his games weren't televised. And there's no way for anyone to know if Mays was out of position unless he knows where the Giants wanted Mays to play and sometimes a defender looks out of position because the pitcher threw the wrong pitch to the wrong location.
No way to know any of that unless you got to talk to the people involved.
Plus Mays did it in the World Series when fewer games were televised nationally so his catch had a huge impact on people who saw it.
The Glanville article was interesting because the rest of us aren't going to think of all the factors an athlete is dealing with which is why it's a good idea to talk to the guys who have to do this stuff while the rest of us watch.
Just watched The Catch video several times and my bad, there is a warning track, but a very narrow one. It wasn't visible in the still photos, but the TV cameras were shot at a different angle so if you're the former groundskeeper of the Polo Grounds my apologies and congratulations on being 140 years old. Willie winds up on the ground right next to the wall, so still a great catch either way.
Reading some of the comments (always a mistake) in the video of The Catch, and while most commenters recognize its greatness, one guy (there's always at least one) claims Jim Edmonds made multiple similar and better catches. He supports his argument by saying The Catch is the only one we ever see of Willie Mays, so he obviously never had another play like it, while Edmonds did it many times. He even claimed Mays likely was playing out of position. smh P.S. Thanks for the link to the Glanville article.
There's always someone willing to tell you the Beatles were overrated or Martin Scorsese's a hack, but Jim Edmond's making some great catches (and he did) doesn't make the Mays catch worse. You might see fewer great catches by Mays because so many of his games weren't televised. And there's no way for anyone to know if Mays was out of position unless he knows where the Giants wanted Mays to play and sometimes a defender looks out of position because the pitcher threw the wrong pitch to the wrong location.
No way to know any of that unless you got to talk to the people involved.
Plus Mays did it in the World Series when fewer games were televised nationally so his catch had a huge impact on people who saw it.
The Glanville article was interesting because the rest of us aren't going to think of all the factors an athlete is dealing with which is why it's a good idea to talk to the guys who have to do this stuff while the rest of us watch.