Free Republic

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi tweeted a happy birthday message to Hall of Fame baseball player Willie Mays for his 90th birthday on Thursday. “Happy 90th Birthday to an all-American icon, Willie Mays. A trailblazing, record-breaking baseball player, civil rights leader, and champion for youth sports and well-being, Willie Mays is a civic legend and national treasure,” Pelosi’s tweet said. The only problem was the photo she used was not of her and Mays. The speaker’s original tweet included an image of her and Willie McCovey, another Hall of Fame player for the San Francisco Giants, who died in 2018. Pelosi’s...

Willie McCovey, one of the great left-handed power hitters of all time, a first-ballot inductee into the National Baseball Hall of Fame in 1986 and a beloved member of the San Francisco Giants family, passed away peacefully Wednesday after a battle with health issues. He was 80 years old. Nicknamed "Stretch" for the long arms and legs attached to his 6-foot-4 frame, McCovey and fellow Hall of Famer and Alabama native Willie Mays comprised the core of San Francisco Giants teams that gave opposing pitchers The Willies. McCovey's pull power was so prodigious that the China Basin that sits beyond...

“If you pitch to him, he’ll ruin a baseball,’’ rival manager Sparky Anderson once said. “There’s no comparison between McCovey and anybody else in the league.” He was the National League rookie of the year in 1959, the league’s MVP in 1969 and the comeback player of the year in 1977 when he kicked off a late-career renaissance by returning to the Giants after a three-year absence. In all, McCovey was a six-time All-Star whose career home run total ties him with Ted Williams for 18th on the all-time list. Before Barry Bonds passed him, McCovey had more home runs...