News

Willie Mays, The Giants’ Electrifying ‘Say Hey Kid,’ Dies At 93

Published

5 months ago

2024-06-19

Willie Mays | AP news Image

Willie Mays, the dazzling “Say Hey Kid” whose unique blend of talent, determination, and passion helped him become one of baseball’s greatest and most adored players, has died. He was 93.

Mays’ family and the San Francisco Giants notified Tuesday night that he died earlier that afternoon in the Bay Area.

“My father died peacefully and surrounded by loved ones,” son Michael Mays said in a statement posted by the club. “I want to thank you all from the bottom of my broken heart for the unfailing love you’ve shown him throughout the years. “You’ve been his lifeblood.”

The center fielder began his professional career in the Negro Leagues in 1948 and was baseball’s oldest living Hall of Famer. He was elected to the Hall of Fame in 1979, his first year of eligibility, and in 1999, he was ranked second only to Babe Ruth on The Sporting News’ list of the game’s greatest players. The Giants retired his uniform number 24 and built AT&T Park in San Francisco on Willie Mays Plaza.

Mays died two days before the Giants’ game against the St. Louis Cardinals to honor the Negro Leagues at Rickwood Field in Birmingham, Alabama.

“All of Major League Baseball is in mourning today as we are gathered at the very ballpark where a career and a legacy like no other began,” Rob Manfred, the commissioner, said. “Willie Mays transferred his all-around brilliance from the Birmingham Black Barons of the Negro American League to the storied Giants team. From coast to coast, Willie inspired generations of players and fans as the game grew and fully earned its status as our National Pastime.”

Few people were blessed with all five of the fundamental traits of a superstar: hitting for average, hitting for power, speed, fielding, and throwing. Few players exuded excitement as much as he did, whether he was blasting home runs, running around the bases with his loose-fitting cap flying off his head, or chasing down fly balls in center field and finishing the job with his characteristic basket catch.

Willie Mays, The Giants’ Electrifying ‘Say Hey Kid,’ Dies At 93

Mays batted for 23 big league seasons, the majority of which were spent with the New York/San Francisco Giants but one in the Negro Leagues.301, 660 home runs, 3,293 hits, almost 2,000 runs scored, and 12 Gold Glove awards. He won Rookie of the Year in 1951, was awarded Most Valuable Player twice, and finished in the top ten for MVP ten times. His lightning-fast dash and over-the-shoulder grab of an apparent extra-base hit in the 1954 World Series is still baseball’s most famous defensive play.

“When I played ball, I tried to make sure everybody enjoyed what I was doing,” Mays told NPR in 2010. “I had the clubhouse guy fit me a cap so that as I ran, the wind got up in the bottom and it flew straight off. People enjoy such kind of stuff.”

For millions in the 1950s, 1960s, and beyond, the smiling ballplayer with the cheerful, high-pitched voice was a hallmark athlete and showman in an era when baseball was still the national pastime. Mays, who received the Medal of Freedom from President Obama in 2015, had a lasting impression on his supporters. But a single feat captured his charm, one so unrivaled that it was simply dubbed “The Catch.”

In Game 1 of the 1954 World Series, the then-New York Giants faced the Cleveland Indians, who had won 111 games in the regular season and were heavy favorites in the postseason. The score was 2-2 in the top of the eighth inning. Vic Wertz of Cleveland faced reliever Don Liddle with no outs, Larry Doby on second, and Al Rosen on first.

With the count 1-2, Wertz blasted a fastball into deep center field. Wertz would have homered or had an easy triple in an ordinary park with an average center fielder. However, the center field wall in the unusually shaped Polo Grounds was more than 450 feet away. Willie Mays’ skills were everything but average.

Decades of video replays haven’t dulled the thrill of seeing Mays rush towards the wall, his back to home plate, reach out his glove and catch the drive. What happened was also remarkable: Mays could swivel around while still moving forward, hurl the ball to the infield, and prevent Doby from scoring even as she spun. Mays proudly stated that “the throw” was as essential as “the catch.”

Willie Mays | AP news Image

Willie Mays, The Giants’ Electrifying ‘Say Hey Kid,’ Dies At 93

“Soon as it got hit, I knew I’d catch the ball,” Mays said author James S. Hirsch, whose book was published in 2010.

“All the time I’m running back, I’m thinking, ‘Willie, you’ve got to get this ball back to the infield.'”

Millions of people saw and heard “The Catch” on radio and television, and Mays became one of the first Black athletes to get widespread media attention. He appeared as a guest on “The Donna Reed Show,” “Bewitched,” and several other comedies. He inspired a few songs and was named first in Terry Cashman’s 1980s novelty tune “Talkin’ Baseball (Willie, Mickey & The Duke),” which was a tribute to the brief era when New York had three future Hall of Famers in the centre: Mays, Mantle of the Yankees, and Snider of the Brooklyn Dodgers.

The Giants went on to sweep the Indians, with many crediting Mays’ performance as a turning moment. The impression was so powerful that 63 years later, in 2017, baseball named him the World Series Most Valuable Player, even though it was his lone playoff memorable moment. He appeared in three previous World Series, for the Giants in 1951 and 1962 and the Mets in 1973, batting 239 with no home runs in all four. (His only postseason home run came in the 1971 National League playoffs when the Giants lost to the Pittsburgh Pirates.

But “The Catch” and his regular-season performances were impressive enough. Yankees and Dodgers fans may have hotly contested Mays’ dominance, but Mantle and Snider did not. At a 1995 baseball writers’ dinner in Manhattan, with all three on the dais, Mantle asked the age-old question: which of the three was better?

“We don’t mind being second, do we, Duke?” He added.

From 1954 to 1966, Mays drove in 100 or more runs ten times, scored 100 or more twelve times, hit 40 or more home runs six times, more than 50 home runs twice, and led the league in stolen bases four times. His numbers might have been higher. He missed most of 1952 and all of 1953 due to military service, which may have cost him the opportunity to break Ruth’s career home run record of 714, which had previously been held by Henry Aaron and Mays’ godson, Barry Bonds. He won more Gold Gloves if the award had been founded before 1956. He said he could have led the league in steals more frequently if he had tried.

“I’m completely devastated and overtaken with grief. “I have no words to express how much you mean to me,” Bonds wrote on Instagram.

Willie Mays | AP news Image

Willie Mays, The Giants’ Electrifying ‘Say Hey Kid,’ Dies At 93

Mays was lucky to avoid catastrophic harm and a huge controversy but faced personal and professional challenges. His first marriage, with Margherita Wendell, ended in divorce. He was frequently short on money during the pre-free agent period, and he received less for sponsorships than Mantle and other white athletes. He was subjected to racial slurs, and his assertion that he was an entertainer rather than a spokesman prompted Jackie Robinson and others to criticize him for not contributing more to the civil rights cause. He didn’t like some of his managers and didn’t always appreciate his idols, particularly Aaron, his greatest contemporary.

“When Henry began to soar up the home-run chart, Willie was loathe to give even a partial nod to Henry’s ability, choosing instead to blame his own performance on his home turf, (San Francisco’s) Candlestick Park, saying it was a lousy park in which to hit homers and this was the reason for Henry’s onrush,” Howard Bryant, Aaron’s biographer, wrote in 2010.

Admirers of Aaron, who died in 2021, argue that only his calm demeanor and geographical distance from major media centers — Aaron played in Atlanta and Milwaukee — prevented him from being rated alongside, if not ahead of, Mays. However, Mays was regarded as the most important player in baseball. He was the game’s highest-paid player for 11 seasons (according to the Society for American Baseball Research), and he frequently batted first in All-Star Games because he was Willie Mays. From center field, he called pitches and positioned other players. He boasted that while determining whether to try for an extra base, he followed his instincts rather than any instructor’s.

Barney Kremenko, a sports writer, is commonly credited with calling Mays “The Say Hey Kid,” which refers to his passionate approach to greeting his teammates. Moments on and off the pitch solidified the public’s adoration. In 1965, Mays broke up a horrific altercation after teammate Juan Marichal hit Los Angeles Dodgers catcher John Roseboro with a bat. Mays walked a bloodied Roseboro away and sat by him on the Dodgers’ clubhouse bench, the Giants’ bitter rivals.

SOURCE – (AP)

News

Pam Bondi Is Appointed US Attorney General Following Gaetz’s Resignation.

Published

2 hours ago

2024-11-22

Salman Ahmad

Photo via Reuters

(VOR News) – President-elect Donald Trump selected Pam Bondi, a former Florida Attorney General and ally, to succeed Matt Gaetz on Thursday after the latter withdrew from consideration.

Gaetz’s drug use and sexual intercourse with a 17-year-old girl were the subject of an investigation by the House Ethics Committee. He denies any wrongdoing.

During Trump’s first administration, Pam Bondi, 59, served on the Opioids and Drug Abuse Commission. He served as police chief of the third-most populous state from 2011 to 2019.

She was also a member of Trump’s defense team at his first impeachment hearing, where he was charged with use military assistance to get Ukraine to look into the wrongdoing of his opponent, now President Joe Biden. The Senate cleared Trump on all charges.

The right-wing America First Policy Institute, which has collaborated with Trump’s campaign to create government concepts, most recently had Pam Bondi as its leader of the legal branch.

Unlike Pam Bondi, Gaetz lacks the experience necessary to serve as attorney general and is likely to encounter resistance from Senate Democrats and some Republicans.

According to Jones Walker defense attorney David Weinstein, a former federal prosecutor in Florida, “She is unequivocally qualified for the position on paper.” Throughout her life, she battled in court. She stood out from the previous nominee because to her resume.

In a tweet announcing his intention to nominate Bondi, Trump praised her skills as a prosecutor and her firm stance against crime as Florida’s first female attorney general. Trump said that even though Bondi was elected on November 5th, while numerous state and federal criminal investigations were underway, he pledged to keep federal prosecutions from being politicized.

According to Trump, “The biased Department of Justice has been weaponized against me and other Republicans for an excessive duration.” Not true anymore.

Discussion about Pam Bondi and Trump’s history before 2016.

In 2013, the Trump Foundation may have broken federal law by giving $25,000 to a political action committee that supported Pam Bondi. Bondi thought about looking into the for-profit Trump University.

Pam Bondi disputed that her decision to end her legal actions against Trump University following the 2016 disclosure of Trump’s $25,000 gift had anything to do with her decision to withdraw from those actions. According to her, all pertinent material was made public by her office.

The erroneous money disclosure was attributed by the Trump team to a “series of unfortunate coincidences and errors.” New York state fraud investigations resulted in the dissolution of both Trump University and the Trump Foundation.

After misleading Trump University students, he settled for $25 million and was fined $2 million for misusing charitable funds.

Following Special Counsel Jack Smith’s acquisition of two indictments against him for his interference in the 2020 election and his possession of secret materials after leaving office, Trump has voiced his displeasure with the present leadership of the Justice Department and pledged retaliation.

AFPI’s Pam Bondi remains loyal to Trump.

She and a number of other lawyers claimed that Smith’s appointment was illegal in an amicus brief they prepared in support of Trump in the secret information litigation. The Justice Department filed an appeal after U.S. District Judge Aileen Cannon, a Trump nominee, rejected the case.

According to a long-standing rule against charging a sitting president, Smith and other top Justice Department officials are examining how both of the Trump criminal cases were resolved.

During his first administration, Trump was incensed with the Justice Department’s obstructionism. Bill Barr specifically refuted Trump’s baseless claims that he lost the 2020 election due to fraud, and Attorney General Jeff Sessions permitted an investigation into Russian meddling in the 2016 election.

Trump’s overarching objectives for the Justice Department have been delineated through his public remarks, interviews with former department lawyers, and Mark Paoletta, a conservative lawyer who develops the department’s policy.

Federal prosecutors may give illegal immigration cases priority.

To obtain a portion of the department’s $291 million justice assistance award, cities might have to cooperate with federal immigration enforcement.

It is probable that the Civil Rights Division will refocus its attention from legal challenges to diversity, equity, and inclusion initiatives in the public and commercial sectors to police accountability to religious freedom.

SOURCE: EAT

News

PayPal’s Technical Challenges Are Affecting Thousands Of Customers Globally.

Published

16 hours ago

2024-11-21

Salman Ahmad

(VOR News) – PayPal is a software program that enables the sending and receiving of monetary orders and transactions.

According to the corporation, which has taken responsibility for the incident that was mentioned before, PayPal is apparently experiencing problems in every region of the world in which it conducts business. This information was provided by the company.

In addition, PayPal noted on its service status website that it was experiencing “a system issue” which may affect a variety of PayPal Products, such as the ability to withdraw money from an account and the ability to complete an express checkout. This issue may even hurt the ability to complete an express checkout.

This problem may also affect other PayPal products.

In light of the fact that this vulnerability is present, there are further PayPal products that have the potential to be affected by it.

One of the remarks that was made was that “Our technical teams are actively working towards resolving the issue,” which was stated in the email that was distributed. This was one of the comments that individuals made. A number of assertions were made, and this was one of them all.

Several customers from various regions of the world have stated that they are unable to access their accounts or that they are having difficulty when it comes to making payments. These customers have also mentioned that they are encountering difficulties making payments.

These clients have informed us that they are experiencing difficulties obtaining their orders by communicating their concerns. As an additional point of interest, a number of customers have reported that they are currently having trouble processing payments. This is something that should be taken into consideration.

Up to the moment that the clock struck twelve twelve Central European Time (GMT), the platform outage monitor known as Downdetector had already received more than seven thousand alerts from users. When the clock reached twelve o’clock, this was the situation that existed.

As indicated by a dashboard that provides an overview of the current state of the services that are being offered by the organization, the crisis started at roughly 10:53 UTC.

PayPal gathered this information via the dashboard.

Among the services that were impacted by the outage, the business asserts that its bitcoin services and the peer-to-peer payment platform Venmo were among those that were affected. Venmo is a form of cryptocurrency that enables users to send and receive payments from one another.

This information suggests that these services were among those that were impacted by the circumstances. This information has been provided.

There are consumers who have voiced their frustration on social media over the fact that they are unable to access their accounts, and some of these customers have expressed their frustration over this issue. A number of users have stated their frustration about this issue.

The discontentment that users are experiencing has been communicated through posts that have been published on various social media platforms as of late.

Users of X, which was once known as Twitter, have submitted screenshots of a notification that flashed when they attempted to log into the platform.

The notification appeared after logging in.

The message was flashed on the screen whenever they attempted to log in by entering their credentials. For those individuals who were fortunate enough to receive the notification, it was strongly recommended that they “please check your entries and try again.”

Since its beginning in 1998, PayPal has developed into a global financial institution that is associated with a significance level that is significant enough to be considered noteworthy. The occurrence of this evolution took place virtually immediately following the establishment of PayPal.

Investors were informed that the total number of active accounts across all of the company’s companies had increased to $432 million for the month that ended on September 30th.

This information was provided to investors. Following the conclusion of the month, this information was made available to the public.

During the course of the month of October, investors were provided with this information for the purpose of their consideration. For those individuals who were interested in investing, the material in question was made available to them.

SOURCE: BBC

News

Thousands of Asylum Seekers in Canada Get Free Housing

Published

1 day ago

2024-11-21

Geoff Brown

With a large increase in the number of asylum seekers in Canada, several communities have begun to create free accommodations for new immigrants, while many Canadians remain homeless.

The city of Ottawa is attempting to build a sprung building, which will function as both a temporary shelter and a center for settlement services such as language training and job placement.

These facilities are intended to host refugees in the city for the first few weeks before transitioning to more suitable housing in Ottawa’s settlement infrastructure.

The city has identified two possible sites for these centers, both in the city’s west end. Planning records refer to them as “modular tension fabric buildings.”

The proposed placements for these structures have caused concern in the local areas. The city’s first proposed location was canceled due to strong community opposition. Subsequently, it proposed two alternative options and rallies for and against constructing the structures, which took place last weekend in both locations.

Many people protested that they had not been fully consulted on the location, while others grumbled that nothing was being done to assist Canadian citizens.

Canadian authorities opened a temporary housing center for migrants with 1,050 beds in the Olympic Stadium in Montreal.

According to city data, one planned location is a federally owned tract of property near the Nepean Sportsplex, which serves around 1.5 million people annually. The other is near a public transport park-and-ride lot in Kanata’s western suburb.

City Councillor Sean Devine, whose constituency includes the Sportsplex site, stated that citizens have much to say about the problem.

“A lot of it is coming from the fact that it would have been preferable if the city of Ottawa had communicated the information sooner, perhaps in advance of the recommendations,” he told Global News during a telephone interview.

According to Devine, the number of migrants arriving in Ottawa has increased significantly in the last two years. This is consistent with national trends in refugee and asylum seeker rates.

Under Trudeua’s leadership, Canada had approximately 250,000 asylum petitions pending as of September 30, 2024, with more than 33,000 approved between January and the end of September.

International students in Canada filed nearly 14,000 asylum petitions in the first nine months of 2024, a roughly 14% increase over the same period last year. Compared to the present figures, approximately 12,000 asylum applications were lodged by international students in 2023—a tremendous surge from a mere 1,810 claims in 2018.

Devine stated that the city has been using two community center gymnasiums outfitted with bunk beds to temporarily lodge certain claimants before transitioning to other sorts of accommodation.

Asylum seekers get free housing in Quebec and Ontario.

According to a September release, the Ottawa Mission noticed a considerable increase in refugees filling its shelter beds in the summer of 2023. By October, asylum seekers were using 61% of the beds, a record high under Trudeau’s leadership.

The new structures will be funded under the federal interim housing aid program, which allows municipalities and provinces to reimburse the federal Government for expenditures incurred while temporarily hosting asylum seekers.

Since 2017, well over $1 billion has been distributed, largely in Ontario and Quebec, with the city of Ottawa getting $105 million to date.

Jenna Sudds, Minister of Families, Children, and Social Development, who represents the Ottawa riding of Kanata-Nepean, expressed disappointment with how the plans were presented to people.

Louisa Taylor, executive director of Settlement Service Organization 613 Asylum Seekers, has collaborated with the city to coordinate resources for settlement assistance at future centers.

Taylor explained that many asylum seekers in an Ottawa homeless shelter prompted her and 613 refugees to organize a recent rally supporting the structure.

“For several years, hundreds of refugee claimants have been living and sleeping on bunk beds and cots in community centers and arenas throughout the city.”

Nobody has gone out protesting about it. “What they’re protesting is the concept of having a facility in their community that they don’t know much about,” she explained.

Homeless Canadians

Homelessness is not a problem that most people connect with within Canada, but it is becoming a growing one. The projected number of homeless persons in Canada fluctuates from 150,000 to 300,000, which is increasing.

According to the 2016 State of Homelessness study, Canada had at least 235,000 homeless people. According to the Homeless Hub, the number of homeless people in Canada varies each year, ranging from 150,000 to 300,000.

However, many more people may be without a permanent home in Canada. The actual number is impossible to determine because many homeless people live in concealed places.

They are so named because they temporarily reside in squats or with friends and relatives. An estimated 1.3 million Canadians have experienced insecure housing or homelessness.

Homelessness Statistics for Canadians

Between 25,000 and 35,000 people are homeless on any given night in Canada.
Toronto has the most homeless people in Canada.
62% of homeless people in Canada are males.
30% of Canadian homeless come from Indigenous communities.
90% of homeless shelters in Canada are in Ontario, British Columbia, Quebec, and Alberta, and 44% of them are in Ontario alone.
22% of shelters are aimed at young homeless in Canada, while 20% of people experiencing homelessness are 13-24 years old.
The annual cost of homelessness is over $7 billion.
The Canadian Government has invested $2.2 billion over ten years to expand funding for the homeless.