Giants' Legends Keeping History Alive

SCOTTSDALE, Ariz. -- This really is stealing money. As I walk through the cacti sprinkled among the palm, ash and eucalyptus trees outside of Scottsdale Stadium, it is the prettiest Thursday ever in the Valley of the Sun.

Now I'm moving downstairs to the clubhouse of the San Francisco Giants, masters at combining their past with their present. This is more so than usual for the Giants. This actually is unbelievable. That's because, after I enter the doors ahead, I'm face to face with Hall of Fame history around a table.

Gaylord Perry. Orlando Cepeda. Willie McCovey.

Then Perry rises, wobbles in my direction (since he is rather large these days at 71) and sticks out his hand. It isn't for me. It's for the slow-moving guy behind me in a spiffy gray suit, custom-made white shirt and red tie.

"Hi, my name is Gaylord Perry," he says, shaking hands with the other guy, whose name is Willie Mays, otherwise known as baseball royalty.

Mays yanks his hand away, then squints his nearly blind eyes, before saying with mock disgust, "Oh, I know who you are." Perry laughs, as he helps to lead Mays to the table of honor. Now there are four of them -- all former Giants legends, all with plaques in Cooperstown, all gathered to do something that other professional and amateur teams rarely do. That is, use the legacy of their team to their advantage by making their old-timers feel like new-timers among their current-timers.

While Perry lives in North Carolina, where he toils around his 58-acre farm, Mays, McCovey and Cepeda remain in the San Francisco Bay Area, where they are part of the Giants' payroll as professional Mayses, McCoveyes and Cepedases. You'll find various combinations of that trio attending Giants home games more often than not throughout the regular season.

"Here's what you have to understand: The Giants have always promoted this type of tradition that Horace Stoneham brought out here (when he moved the team from New York to San Francisco in 1958)," says McCovey, 72, always a courageous sight. He is restricted to a walker after a series of knee surgeries gone bad, but he smiles easily. He adds while thinking of the Giants' current owner, "Fortunately, Peter Magowan is from New York, and he wanted to continue that tradition.

"And you know what? When you have guys like Cepeda and Mays and Perry, why wouldn't you want to continue something like that?"

Why not, indeed?

So here are four of the Giants' five living Hall of Famers (Juan Marichal resides in the Dominican Republic), preparing to spend a closed-door session with their distant successors for a second consecutive spring. They are casually dressed -- except for Mays, who takes a few jabs from the others for his attire.

Then Mays shrugs when asked what he expects to tell the players. "I don't know what I'm going to say to the guys," Mays responds, before recalling how he invited several Giants to his Scottsdale residence last week for dinner. He is 78, and except for his eye issues, he looks mostly well. He adds, while thinking ahead to his possible words, "It just depends on what comes up. If you had a speech made up, you wouldn't want that. Nah. You want to talk to the guys, answer some of the questions they want to know about, but I really have no idea what I'm going to say."

He's Willie Mays, which means he can "Say Hey," or anything else to hold the attention of everybody. You wouldn't expect anything less from a national icon who flew with President Obama on Air Force One last year to the All-Star Game. A recent book called "Willie Mays: The Life, The Legend" is a top seller.



After I chat more with Mays, I'm told the clubhouse is about to close, because it's time for those Hall of Famers to speak.

They tell stories. Then more stories.

They answer questions.

They inspire.

The Hall of Famers' batting -- um, speaking -- order is Cepeda, then Mays, then McCovey and then Perry.

"Yep, I was the cleanup hitter," says Perry, chuckling later. He actually reached Cooperstown with his right pitching arm, and he says he spoke to the players about the little things. For instance: Mays pulled Perry aside during the 1960s, and mentioned that, if he knew what Perry was about to throw and where he was about to throw it, he could position himself better in center field.

No problem, said Perry, who told Mays the following: If he was going inside on a hitter, he would scratch his shirt. If he was going outside, he would stretch his arms -- or vice versa. "Then I would turn around and kick the mound to give Willie time to nonchalantly talk to another outfielder, but at the same time, he was moving," Perry says. "Years later, when I went to play for San Diego with Ozzie Smith, I also let him know what was coming, and I learned all of that from Mays.

"That's really what I talked about to the young players. Working together. You can win five or six more games a season with those type of things."

It makes sense.

What doesn't is this: When it comes to using the wisdom of the great players from their past, why don't more teams do it?

The St. Louis Cardinals sort of do it. They have Stan Musial, Bob Gibson, Ozzie Smith and Lou Brock, but they collectively aren't within several fungoes of the Giants' example. That's partly because Smith would rather eat resin bags than stand in the same hemisphere with Cardinals manager Tony La Russa.

Elsewhere, the New York Yankees used to have it, but except for a Yogi here and a Whitey there, the old gangs of the Babe and the Mick are gone. The Los Angeles Dodgers still have Koufax, Lasorda and Wills, but that's about it. The Cincinnati Reds have four living Hall of Famers, but Joe Morgan is married to his ESPN career, Tony Perez works for the Florida Marlins, Sparky Anderson prefers to stay in southern California, and Johnny Bench is slightly involved as an adviser.

As for other sports, well, it's spotty.

You'll rarely see blocking and tackling at Lambeau Field without also seeing Paul Hornung, Jim Taylor, Bart Starr and the rest of that sainted Green Bay crowd. In the NBA, the Los Angeles Lakers and the Boston Celtics regularly flaunt those who contributed to their world champions. The same goes for the Montreal Canadiens. And you can't attend a Notre Dame football game or a Kentucky basketball game without stumbling into one of their old heroes without trying.

The Giants are nearly peerless, though. Says Cepeda, looking fit at 72 and invested in the wine industry of northern California, "In some places, people don't care about the past, but some do. Some really do, especially here. They show you a little respect."

I nod, take a final look at history still chatting away around the table and then leave with a smile for the brilliant sunshine.