Remembering Willie Mays: He was Steph Curry, Michael Jordan, Simone Biles and Mikhail Baryshnikov
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Tim Kurkjian, ESPN Senior Writer
Editor’s note: Willie Mays died Tuesday at age 93. This story was originally published in 2021 on his 90th birthday.
To appreciate Willie Mays is to remember him at 20. When he joined the New York Giants in 1951, the game had never seen an athlete like him — breathtakingly graceful, the greatest combination of power, speed and defense ever to wear a major league uniform. And 70 years later, to many, he remains precisely that.
“You’d sit on the bench and watch Willie Mays,” Hall of Famer Reggie Jackson said. “It was so exciting just to watch him. People did that with Jim Brown. They did that with the acrobatics and greatness of [Michael] Jordan. It’s like players today going to watch the pregame warm-ups of Steph Curry. To watch Willie warm up, to throw the ball underhand, to make a basket catch. The beauty and the grace. For the kids today, it was like watching Simone Biles. It was like watching [Mikhail] Baryshnikov. It was poetry in motion. It was so beautiful, so pretty, to watch this athlete just run on the field, catch a ball. I loved to play against Willie Mays because it meant that I got to watch Willie Mays.”
Mays was one of the three great center fielders in New York, joining the Yankees’ sensational Mickey Mantle and Dodgers Hall of Famer Duke Snider. But as Mantle once said, “Well, there were the two of us … and then there was Willie.”
Ken Griffey Jr. made it even simpler.
“I call him ‘The Godfather of Center Fielders,'” Junior said.
And what of those comparisons, that Griffey would be the next Mays?
“In baseball, comparisons are always made, but I didn’t compare myself to him,” Griffey said. “But I also didn’t not want to be compared to him, if that makes sense. You always want to be compared to the best.”
Lon Simmons, a Hall of Fame broadcaster who called Giants games all 14 years that Mays played in San Francisco once the team moved west in 1958, said, “Willie was so good, the fans expected a miracle from him every day. So he gave them a miracle every other day.”
Mays is generally considered not only the greatest center fielder of all time, but after Babe Ruth, the greatest player of all time. I once asked Doug Rader, a five-time Gold Glove third baseman for the Astros from 1967 to 1977 and a later a big league manager, who was the best player he had ever seen. Rader laughed.
“Bill Mays, who else?” he said.
Hall of Famer Juan Marichal agreed.
“Willie was the best, No. 1 all time … and I know,” Marichal said. “I was there for a lot of Willie.”
Who else? Willie Mays was that good.
“He was magical,” Hall of Fame catcher Johnny Bench said. “He was perfect.”
“Best player I’ve ever seen,” said Tim McCarver, a former catcher who played in four decades and later became a Hall of Fame broadcaster. “He could do all the things that other guys couldn’t.”
“He was the first player to have genuine swag,” Astros manager Dusty Baker said.
There were five-tool players before Mays, but all of Mays’ tools were among the best in the game, like a lead singer who wrote the songs and could also play all the instruments better than anyone in the band. Mays’ 12 Gold Gloves are the most ever by a player in the 500-home run club. When he retired in 1973, he was third all time in homers after averaging 33 a year.
Indeed, he could play the piano and move it, too.
“He has all the same traits as Mike Trout,” Pete Rose said. “But [Trout] doesn’t have Willie’s flair.”
It almost wasn’t fair.
“Willie Mays was too good,” former teammate Felipe Alou said.
Jump to a section:
THE BAT | THE GLOVE | THE ARM | THE LEGS |
THE SAY HEY KID
The Bat
Mays hit 660 home runs, now sixth most of all time. He had 3,283 hits, 11th most ever. He won two MVPs, 11 years apart. He had a .302 average, an OPS over .900 for 13 straight years, an OPS over 1.000 in five seasons. He won a National League batting title and four home run titles. He played 14 years in Candlestick Park, a big ballpark with swirling winds; in another home ballpark, he might have hit 700 homers. If he hadn’t missed nearly two prime seasons to military service, he might have hit closer to 800. His swing was short and compact. He often stepped in the bucket, but could still cover the outside part of the plate.
Former manager Bobby Valentine
“It was a different sound off his bat. One day I got to the ballpark very early just to check out his bats. I went to the other dugout to see if they were different. They were heavy; they weren’t different. He was different.”
Pete Rose
“I felt sorry for Willie in a way having to play at that s—hole Candlestick. That was the worst place in the world to play baseball. It was always windy and cold. The sun was always in your eyes. There were 10,000, 12,000 people at every game. If he played today in the bandboxes in Cincinnati and Philadelphia and some other places, he’d hit 70 homers a year. He wasn’t just a power hitter. He was a good hitter. He loved to talk hitting. If he had hit behind me and [Joe] Morgan, he’d have driven in 500 or 600 more runs.”
Former manager and catcher Joe Torre
“Willie was a left-center, right-center hitter. The ballparks he played didn’t aid him. He hit 660 home runs, but he had to earn every one of them at home. The Polo Grounds was short down the lines, but in the gap, they were very deep. And he played at Candlestick. After noon, the ball would fly to right field, but you could shoot a bazooka off in left field some of those nights and the ball wouldn’t go anywhere.”
One night in Milwaukee in 1961, Mays hit four home runs in one game.
Simmons
“The wind knocked another one down. Otherwise, he would have had five.”
Torre
“Willie didn’t like to wait in the box. He wants you to throw the ball right now. There were times where I’d put a sign down, but I wouldn’t put anything down. And Willie would talk to you. He’d say, ‘I know what you’re doing. I know what you’re doing.’ It was impossible not to love him even though he scared you to death because he was so good. One time, I tried to distract him by talking to him. I asked him a question at the plate, I don’t remember what it was about, maybe about a restaurant, and while answering the question, he hit the ball out of the ballpark. Then he sort of made a half turn to me as he started to first base and told me, ‘I’ll finish the story later.'”
Bench
“Willie would come to the plate and he was swinging his bat back and forth as only Willie could. And every time he swung this way, he’d go back this way [toward the catcher], he would be looking for the sign. There was no one doing the drums or banging trash cans back then. But Peanuts Lowrey [the Giants first-base coach] was telling him what pitch was coming. So I’m squatting back there, and Willie steps out of the box, looks at me and says, ‘Are you going to call a signal or what?’ And I said, ‘As soon as you stop looking back here.’ And he laughed and said, ‘Oh, you got me! Oh, you got me!'”
Most of that power came from Mays’ legendarily strong hands.
Baker
“I once went up to him behind the batting cage as a rookie. I asked him, ‘Why do you play me right behind second base? I’ll hit that ball over your head.’ Willie said, ‘Boy, because you choke up on the bat. You ain’t strong enough to hit that ball over my head. That’s why I play you right behind second base.’ Then he showed me his hands. The muscle between his thumb and his forefinger looked like a golf ball in there. He said, ‘Boy, let me see your hands.’ I had nothing. He said, ‘That’s why I play you behind second base.’ So I immediately went to squeezing hand grips to get that muscle in there.”
Valentine
“When you shook Willie’s hand, you were shaking a hand — a man’s hand. It’s him, Rico Carty and Hank [Aaron]. Willie’s hand would engulf your hand. It gulped it up.”
Duane Kuiper, former major league and Giants broadcaster
“The truth is that those guys who played in the ’60s all had huge, strong hands — Mays, Aaron, [Willie] McCovey, [Frank] Robinson, [Orlando] Cepeda. They were all like dairy farmers who milked cows by hand. With those guys, you had to get your hand in there first or they’d crush it. My dad always told me, ‘You have to win the handshake.’ But with Willie, you couldn’t.”
Bench (who has his own enormous hands)
“Willie’s hands are so thick. When we played golf, we both had the oversized grips. He’d come over, grab my clubs and say, ‘These feel good.'”
Rose
“Willie also had giant forearms. Look, I’m as big as Willie Mays [both around 5-11 and 170-190 pounds]. And he hit 660 homers and I had 160.”
The Glove
Mays won 12 Gold Gloves. Consider this, though: They didn’t begin being awarded until 1957; he could have won 16. He had tremendous speed, incredible range and got as good a jump on the ball as anyone ever.
Former Giants pitcher Steve Stone
“He was the best center fielder in the game when he was 39 years old. It’s truly amazing how long he was able to maintain his skills.”
Mays’ signature was the famous basket catch: Instead of catching the ball in front of his face as did and does every other outfielder, Mays would often nonchalantly catch it at his hip.
Bench
“And he never missed one. He was so effortless. Back then, you wanted to put mustard on him. But that was just his natural ability and the grace he had in performing. Almost every game it seems like he made an amazing play. You could have two had outfielders, put the other in the infield, because Willie covered it all.”
McCarver
“[Cardinals teammate] Curt Flood was the best I’ve ever seen against the wall. He was better than Willie against the wall. But Curt played deep. Willie didn’t play deep; he played shallow. Willie never went to the wall. Willie was the wall.”
Alou (who played left or right field next to Mays for six years)
“I found myself at times watching the game like a fan would watch a game. A ball would be hit and I would say, like a fan or a broadcaster, ‘Is he really going to catch this one?’ He had an amazing first step. He was covering half of the field by himself.”
Baker
“Chris Speier [who was a rookie with the Giants in 1971] told me stories that Willie was calling pitches from center field for the pitcher to throw a certain hitter. He and Hank Aaron, in those days, they didn’t have scouting reports. They could tell where a guy was going to hit the ball by his hand position: If his hands were outside the zone, he was going to pull the ball. If his hands were in tight, he was going to try to inside-out the ball to the opposite field. Those guys studied all the hitters back then. They didn’t need a scout.”
Hall of Famer Tony Perez
“The best play I ever saw him make was the ball that Vada Pinson hit to right-center field at Candlestick. Willie ran the ball down, collided with [right fielder Bobby] Bonds and caught the ball. I don’t know how Willie caught it.”
Mays
“Leon [Wagner] could hit, but you never knew where he might catch the ball. So one day, there’s a high fly ball. I go after it. I think Leon is going to catch it, but he’s just standing there like this [hands at his side]. So I jumped, I put my foot right in his belt buckle. I caught the ball and came down on him. I thought, ‘Oh no, I cut him.’ I went to him and said, ‘Leon, pull up your shirt. Let me see where I cut you.’ There were no marks. I don’t know how. I hit him with my spikes in his belt buckle. No one is going to believe that catch.”
Mays made perhaps the greatest defensive play — and the most famous — in World Series history when he robbed the Indians’ Vic Wertz with a running catch in deep center field in 1954.
Hall of Famer Bob Feller
“That really wasn’t that great of a catch. As soon as it was hit, everyone on our bench knew that he was going to catch it … because he is Willie Mays.”
Jackson
“I have the last glove that Willie Mays wore. It says 1954 World Champions on it. I bought it.” For how much? “Let’s just say, if I sold it, it would take between $200,000-$250,000. I bought it because no one used a glove better than Willie Mays.”
The Arm
Mays had a tremendously strong and accurate arm, which is critical for a center fielder. A throw to the plate has to have enough carry to get it over the mound.
Bench
“You already knew there were guys that you never, ever ran on. You had respect for those guys. Willie charged the ball as well as anyone who ever played baseball. He was able to judge the speed of the ball so well so he could scoop and throw.”
McCarver
“Johnny Keane [the Cardinals manager from 1961 to 1964] told us in meetings, ‘Don’t run on Willie, he will throw you out. He’s baiting you. He wants you to think he can’t, and then he does.’ Willie figured it out. Willie always figured everything out.”
Mays
“They [people in baseball] told me, ‘You can’t do round-robin.’ That’s throwing out a runner at first base, second base, third base and home in the same game. I said, ‘I can do that. What are you talking about?’ So, we’re at Dodger Stadium, [Don] Drysdale hits the ball over the middle for a base hit. I watched him, he put his head down and started walking to first. I thought, ‘I got him.’ So I threw him out at first. He cussed me something fierce. The next inning, Maury Wills went to third, he tried to score on a fly ball, and I threw Maury out at home. The next inning, Willie Davis tried to go from first to third. I threw him out at third. Jim Lefebvre hits a ball in the gap. I had him out by five feet at second base, [Giants second baseman] Tito [Fuentes] had him, but he didn’t squeeze the ball. Tito was crying at second base. He knew what I was trying to do. So I had to call time. I go in and told Tito, ‘Don’t worry, it’s not the end of the world.’ He said, ‘Yes, it is. I know round-robin was right there in your grasp.’ I told him, ‘Don’t worry, I’ll get it the next time.’ But, I never came close … but I would have had it that day.”
Hall of Famer and former Mays teammate Orlando Cepeda
“Ave Maria! I never saw anyone go from first to third on Willie’s arm. Felipe Alou was a great right fielder, but Willie once told Felipe on a fly ball hit by Willie Kirkland to right center, ‘Let me take it, let me take it.’ So Willie caught the ball at the 390-foot sign in right-center field, and he threw a low throw, on the line, in the air, all the way to third base. Willie had the greatest throwing arm I’ve ever seen, even better than [Roberto] Clemente’s arm.”
Marichal
“Before every game that me [or] Gaylord [Perry] pitched, we’d have a meeting about how we were going to pitch the other team that night. It was always a three-man meeting. Me, the catcher and Willie Mays. He used to help us on how to pitch all the hitters on the other team. Willie knew exactly what to do with each hitter.”
The Legs
It wasn’t just the stolen bases that separated Mays from other players, especially other power hitters. It was his innate feel for baserunning, going first to third, scoring from second on a single, legging out one of the 140 triples he hit, including a league-best 20 in 1957.
Perez
“He was one of the greatest. He would go from first base to third on a ball to right center. He didn’t even have to look at the third-base coach. He was his own coach.”
McCarver
“He was a terror on the bases.”
Alou
“I was always told that Jackie Robinson was the only baserunner better than Willie, but I used to wonder, ‘How can you be a better runner than Willie Mays?’ I saw him score standing up at least 10 times on a wild pitch that wasn’t 10 feet from home plate.”
Hall of Famer Willie McCovey (who usually hit behind Mays in the lineup)
“Willie would start to run to second on the wild pitch or a passed ball, then go back to first because he knew they’d walk me with first base open. Oh, Willie saw it all.”
Rose
“Willie had great instincts on the bases and he was always aggressive. I was an aggressive baserunner also. I developed my baserunning skills watching Willie Mays play.”
Bench
“Willie was hitting 50 homers so you can’t afford to have him running and getting hurt all the time. You can say 29th [all time in steals when he retired], but he could have easily moved into the top 10. And on a single, it would have been strange if he didn’t go first to third. He had one of the best turns rounding second or third you could possibly have. With his agility, he made the most perfect turns.”
Jackson
“After I retired, I took Willie to the eye doctor several times. He had early glaucoma. One day, we’re driving and I asked him about [Jose] Canseco going 40-40 [homers and stolen bases in one season]. I said to Willie, ‘What do you think of those guys going 40-40? You did 30-30 a couple of times.’ Willie said, ‘Oh, hell, 40-40, that’s nothing. I could have done 50-50 any time. I wanted to steal my bases when it mattered, for the team.'”
Cepeda
“The greatest baserunner I’ve ever seen. He made triples look easy. I used to hit behind Willie in the order. When he was on base, I would watch him run. I tried to mimic him, to do what he did on the bases. But I couldn’t. No one could.”
Baker
“I thought I had a pretty good arm. I thought I was going to throw Willie out at third base one day. I had him out. He ran right in the way of the ball, it hit him in the shoulder. I got an error, and he scored. I swear to God, he looked back, he saw where the throw was, he just ran right into the path of the ball. I told the umpire, ‘He can’t do that!'”
The Say Hey Kid
Willie Mays is a character. He is supremely confident, even arrogant at times, but also self-deprecating and playful, always up for a laugh. And his laugh, that wonderful laugh, that high-pitched voice that didn’t fit his physique or mystique. He was so revered by teammates, but also by opponents. So much so that Dodgers manager Walter Alston, more than once, while managing the NL All-Star team, had Mays make out the starting lineup.
Mays
“Walter told me, ‘Willie, you know these guys better than I do, you make the batting order.’ So I hit myself leadoff, Roberto [Clemente] hit second and Hank [Aaron] third. I figured I’d get on, Roberto would get me over and Hank would get me in.”
Griffey Jr.
“The first time I met him I was 17, playing in the Instructional League. I couldn’t believe it was happening. I was told, ‘Willie Mays wants to meet you.’ I was like, ‘Oh, s—.’ So I started talking to him. I missed the first two innings of the Instructional League game because I was talking to Willie Mays. But my manager didn’t care. He said, ‘He’s going to learn more talking to Willie Mays than he’s going to learn playing in his damn game today. Let him talk as long as he likes.” And what did Mays tell Griffey that day that Griffey will never forget? “He said, ‘You’re going to be good. You’re going to be real good.’ … He is such a caring person. He told me, at age 17, to call him if I needed anything. He didn’t have to do that. But I would have my dad call him first. I couldn’t just call Willie Mays.”
Torre
“[First baseman] Bill White was playing for the Cardinals. He and Gibby [Hall of Fame pitcher Bob Gibson] went to San Francisco in the offseason. Bill was invited to Willie’s house for dinner, and he asked Gibby if he wanted to go. Bob said, ‘I’d love to go, I’ve never met Willie Mays.’ They ring the doorbell. Willie comes to the door. In the offseason, Gibby always wore glasses, but he didn’t wear them when he pitched. So Willie opens the door, he says hello to Bill, then he says, ‘Who is this?’ Bill said, ‘Willie, this is Bob Gibson.’ Willie didn’t say hello to him, all he said was, ‘You wear glasses!? And you don’t wear them when you pitch? Are you crazy? You’re going to hurt somebody!'”
Mays wasn’t good to only the stars.
Marichal
“The first time I met Willie was the day I was called up to the big leagues for the first time, July 10, 1960. Willie was so good to me, but he was so good to everyone. He took me out to dinner, but he took everyone out to dinner. He used to take teammates to a clothing store. And we’d all come home with a suit, shirts, a coat, slacks, shoes. Willie was a great teammate.”
Baker
“He was great to all us young guys, guys of all colors. Willie gave me my first McGregor glove, back when gloves were made out of kangaroos. That’s outlawed now.”
Bench
“The most special moment of all for me was the 1968 All-Star Game at the Astrodome. I am sitting at my locker, straight across from Willie. And I am not moving. I am 20 years old. I don’t want to [accidentally spike] anyone; I don’t want to act like I belonged there. Willie walked across from his locker to mine and says, ‘You should have been the starting catcher.’ That was it. That was all I needed. The validation. The validation I got from Willie. It was an honor to be around him. The joy he brought. He was the guy you emulated in every way. He was everything that baseball should be … the Say Hey Kid, man.”
Griffey Jr.
“I once went past [the visiting clubhouse manager’s office at AT&T Park] and Willie was sitting in there with Willie McCovey. I just tried to slide by, and Willie [Mays] came out and said, ‘Hold up, hold up. Come in here. You got enough home runs to be in this room.’ That made me feel important.”
Rose
“My first All-Star Game was in 1965, and my locker was in between Willie Mays and Hank Aaron. And I thought, ‘What the hell am I doing here sitting between these guys?’ Willie went out of his way to make me feel a part of the team. I never forgot that.”
Mays is a great storyteller.
Mays (on facing Satchel Paige for the first time in 1949)
“Satch would pitch to anyone that would pay him. I hit a double off the wall against him. The guy behind me, Jimmy Zapp, hit a home run. So later in the game, Satch told his third baseman, ‘Let me know when that little boy come back up.’ I thought he was talking about somebody else. So, in the third, I heard the third baseman say, ‘There he is.’ I didn’t know who they were talking about. The catcher said, ‘They’re talking about you.’ I said, ‘No way.’ So Satch walked halfway to home plate and said, ‘Little boy,’ and I said, ‘Yes sir.’ Satch was much older than I was. Satch said, ‘Little boy, I’m not going to trick you, I’m going three fastballs, then you’re going to go sit down.’ I said, No one way could he throw the same pitch three times and I don’t hit it. He threw me the three damnedest fastballs. I didn’t come close to hitting it. He said, ‘Little boy, now you can go sit down.'”
McCarver
“I wrote in my book that Willie had the thickest fingers I have ever seen, and that he buffed his fingernails every day. Every day. He came up to me and said, in that high-pitched voice, ‘I heard that you said that I buffed my nails every day. You’re right, I do!'”
Griffey Jr.
“I think it was during spring training [with the Reds], I was invited to dinner at the governor’s house [in Florida]. Jeb Bush was the governor. I was going to fly down there, but my manager [Bob Boone] told me, ‘Ah, I don’t think I can let you go.’ I told him, ‘But Willie Mays invited me.’ [Boone] immediately said, ‘Oh OK, go ahead.’ That’s how important Willie Mays is.”
Jackson
“The first time I heard of Willie Mays was the Vic Wertz catch, 1954, I was 8. We had a black-and-white TV. You had to put a quarter in the TV to watch it for an hour. That’s how you paid for it. As I grew up, I was a Willie Mays fan, but you had to be a Dodger fan if you were Black because of Jackie [Robinson] and Roy [Campanella] and Newk [Don Newcomb] and Junior Gilliam. But when Willie came to town, I begged my dad to take me to the game. After the game, my dad took me down to where the players’ bus was. I crawled on the ground, I crawled through people’s legs, and I watched Willie get on the bus. That was such a wonderful experience for me.”
Hall of Fame pitcher Jim Palmer
“The first time I ever met him was in January 1969 at a golf event. His partner in the tournament was Joe Namath, who slept in on the day of the tournament and didn’t show up on the first tee. So Willie didn’t play. Willie and I were in the Long Drive Contest together. Here I am, this skinny pitcher, and here’s Willie Mays, so strong. So I won the Long Drive Contest. Willie, in that high-pitched voice, told me, ‘There’s no way you can outdrive me. Your ball hit the sprinkler head.’ I said, ‘Well, all I know is that my drive went 310 and yours went only 290.’ Willie just laughed.”
Perez
“One day at Candlestick, Jim Maloney was pitching for us [the Reds]. He threw really hard. Really hard. He also liked to mess around, to have fun, with players on the field. So Willie got in the box and Maloney went to his mouth like he was going to throw a spitball. Instead he threw a fastball right down the middle. Willie took it. He ended up walking. When he got to first, I told him, ‘You know, Maloney is crazy.’ And Willie laughed said, ‘I know. He’s crazy. He’s pretending to throw a spitball. He doesn’t need it. He’s going to kill someone with that. But it’s not going to be me because I won’t be in there!'”
Torre
“A friend of mine, Dave, he lives in Hawaii. He’s from the Bay Area, he’s a big Giants fan, a big Willie fan. And his birthday is the same day as Willie — May 6. So two or three years ago, I said, ‘I’ll let you know when I’ll be in San Francisco and we’ll watch a game together.’ Unbeknownst to Dave, I arranged for Willie to be at the ballpark. I pulled Willie out of the stands. He talked to Dave for an hour. Willie couldn’t do enough for him. He signed anything. He took pictures with him. The capper for me was Willie says, ‘What else do you need?’ So Willie called Mike Murphy, the clubhouse guy for the Giants, and says, ‘Murph, get me a shirt.’ Willie took the shirt off his back, signed it and gave it to Dave. He literally gave him the shirt off his back. Dave has never stopped talking about it obviously. He tries to buy me breakfast, lunch and dinner every time I see him.”
Palmer
“The first batter I faced in my first All-Star Game [1970] was Willie Mays … the guy I watched growing up in New York and California. I mean, really, Willie Mays. And I struck him out on three high fastballs. I saw him at the Hall of Fame years later and he told me, ‘I was told you were wild. I was told you were a kind of a headhunter.’ I wasn’t wild or a headhunter, but the first time I faced Willie was such a thrill.”
Alou
“That was the thing about Willie. No matter where he was playing, he always played with passion, whether for the Giants, or a barnstorming game, or spring training or playing stickball in the streets of New York with kids. His concentration was like no one I had ever seen. And he loved me for some reason. He called me Chico because it was hard for him to say Felipe. Sometimes he called me Phillip. But even today, if we’re near each other, he hears my voice from another room, he recognizes me and says, ‘Hey, it’s Chico!'”
Kuiper
“Willie filled in and did the color commentary a few times many years ago before Mike [Krukow, Kuiper’s current broadcast partner on Giants games] started doing games. So I’m the play-by-play guy. It’s Easter Sunday. Robby Thompson strikes out on a check swing with the tying run at third to end the game. So, on Easter Sunday, Willie says, on the air, ‘Jesus Christ!’ I looked at him. I have to talk because I’m the play-by-play guy, and all I could say was, ‘We’ll be back with Reverend Willie Mays, right after this.'”
Bench
“The first time we played against him, the first time he came to the plate, he said, ‘Hey, how are you, kid?’ He loves to tell the story about how he was on second base and he says, ‘Man, they [the Reds] got this hotshot catcher, I hope we get a base hit because I’m going to knock his ass into the dugout.’ Then he said, ‘We got a base hit, I come around, and … have you slid into a tree? I went backwards. I went back backwards.’ I can’t tell what he said after that, but it was like, ‘Get this off me, you broke my blanking leg.'”
Jackson
“The first time I met Willie Mays was my rookie year in spring training playing for the A’s in 1969. Willie came over to the A’s bench and said, ‘Where’s Reggie Jackson? Who’s this kid Reggie Jackson? I want to see Reggie Jackson.’ I met him. That was a huge, huge deal for me, for him to come over to our dugout and ask for me. I got to shake his hand. So Catfish Hunter and Sal Bando told me, ‘Reggie, do your Willie. Do your Willie.’ I could run like him. I could do that pigeon-toed walk that he had. He cracked up laughing. Willie had his glove tucked under his arm. I said, ‘What’s this thing on your glove? Buck?’ He said, ‘That’s my nickname.’ I said, ‘That’s really cool.’ After that, Catfish and Bando and [Rollie] Fingers and [Joe] Rudi always called me Buck ever since then.”
Valentine
“[As the manager of the Rangers], I had to go to tell Willie at an Old-Timers’ Game that Joe [DiMaggio] would not come out on the field unless he came out last and was introduced as the greatest living player. So Bobby Bragan made me tell Willie, Mickey [Mantle] and the Duke [Snider], one by one, that Joe would have to come out last. Willie, with that high-pitched voice, said, ‘Well, Joe actually thinks he is the greatest living player. So maybe we should let him.’ I told Willie, ‘I am so happy that you said that.'”
Palmer
“One time at the Hall of Fame, after the induction ceremony, we all went back to the hotel for hors d’oeuvres. At our table was Yogi [Berra], Whitey [Ford], Duke [Snider], Tommy Lasorda, Willie Mays and me. Now that’s a table. So Lasorda asks Yogi what he wants to put on his tombstone. Yogi said, ‘Oh, that’s easy: It’s over.’ You know, it’s never over until it’s over. Willie cackled. Willie has a great laugh.”
Valentine
“In 2000 [during the playoffs], Willie was holding court in the Giants’ clubhouse. I asked Murph [Mike Murphy, the Giants’ home clubhouse manager] if he could bring Willie over to talk to my guys. So, Willie comes over and talks to my players. Incredibly, some of them didn’t know who he was. This was 2000! That was worse than disgraceful.”
Rose
“They didn’t know who Willie Mays is? Do they know who God is?”
Griffey Jr.
“I have a jersey signed by Willie. It says: ‘From One Kid To Another Kid. The Say Hey Kid.’ That is prominently displayed in my man cave at home. People come in and look at it and say, ‘Is that him?’ I said, ‘Yes, that’s Willie Mays.'”
The MLB winter meetings have come and gone, and though there’s always a hope that there will be plenty of action, that’s not always the case. The 2025 meetings didn’t have a $700 million-plus deal like last year, but there were still a number of impactful free agent signings, although no groundbreaking trades.
Veteran slugger Kyle Schwarber chose to return to the Philadelphia Phillies on a five-year deal in the first major splash of the meetings. The Los Angeles Dodgers added to an already star-studded roster by signing closer Edwin Diaz to a three-year, $69 million contract that sets a record in AAV for a reliever. The Baltimore Orioles then joined the fun by adding a veteran slugger on a five-year deal of their own in Pete Alonso.
We asked our MLB experts who were on the scene in Orlando, Florida, to break down everything that happened this week. Which moves most impressed them — and which most confused them? Who were the biggest winners and losers? What should we make of the trade market? And what can we expect next?
What is the most interesting thing you heard this week in Orlando?
Jorge Castillo: That a Tarik Skubal trade is likely. Here’s what we know: Detroit Tigers president of baseball operations Scott Harris can shut down speculation by simply saying he is not trading Skubal and he has not done that. Instead, he noted this week that there aren’t any “untouchables” on his roster. Trading the best pitcher in baseball when you’re trying to compete would upset the fan base, but the Tigers, knowing re-signing Skubal next winter is unlikely, appear open to it.
Bradford Doolittle: Managers’ responses to questions about how they plan to handle the new automated ball-strike (ABS) challenge system were interesting. No one seems fixed on a protocol just yet, but what had not occurred to me is that catchers are likely to be the triggers for challenges for the defense. So instead of the possible reality in which catcher value was undermined by a full-blown automated system, this structure actually will enhance it — and we’ll have a new set of statistics to track.
Alden Gonzalez: Tyler Glasnow‘s name has come up in conversations, and the Dodgers would not be opposed to moving him. He’s poised to make a combined $60 million over the next two years, with either a $30 million club option or a $21.6 million player option in 2028. But the quality of his stuff continues to tantalize executives throughout the industry, and there are certainly a fair share of teams that will bank on him staying healthy enough to make it worthwhile. Maybe he’s part of the package that brings Tarik Skubal to L.A. It’s a long shot, perhaps, but wilder things have happened.
Jeff Passan: The Texas Rangers are in listening mode on star shortstop Corey Seager, which doesn’t mean the two-time World Series MVP is by any means going to be moved but reflects the Rangers’ willingness to overhaul the team beyond their trade of Marcus Semien. To be abundantly clear: Texas isn’t looking to shed the remaining $186 million on his contract. The return would need to overwhelm the Rangers. But they are facing a payroll crunch, and with Alonso landing a $155 million deal and Schwarber reaping $150 million, Seager’s deal is quite appealing. He’s only 31, he plays an excellent shortstop and of all the position players ostensibly available via trade or free agency, he is the best.
Jesse Rogers: Simply put, that deals for many of the major free agent pitchers aren’t close to being finalized. It almost feels like the beginning of the offseason for starting pitchers, who are meeting with teams to try to ignite their market. There has been a steady pace of signings for relievers — especially at the high end — but other than Dylan Cease, starting pitchers have been slow to agree to deals. That will change — at least in part — because Japanese starter Tatsuya Imai has a deadline of Jan. 2 to sign, but even that is still several weeks away.
What was your favorite move of the offseason so far?
Doolittle: I’m not too excited about any of them so far — not that I think they’re all bad, just nothing tickles my fancy. So the bar is pretty low. I’ll go with the Toronto Blue Jays going big on Cease. Keep that crest wave Toronto is on rolling.
Gonzalez: As a general rule, any free agent deal this time of year tends to be an overpay. And that’s what makes the Dodgers’ deal for star closer Diaz so appealing. Diaz received the highest annual value ever for a reliever, but they were able to get him for only three years (and, as they so often do, defer some of the payments). The Dodgers capitalized on the New York Mets‘ signing of Devin Williams — which opened the door for Diaz’s departure — and addressed their own biggest need with the type of short-term, high-AAV contract that is always their preference.
Rogers: I love Baltimore going for it, agreeing to a deal with Alonso. The Orioles had a bad season in 2025 and are doing everything they can to change their fortunes for next season — even if there are some inherent doubts about acquiring an aging first baseman for big money. The bottom line is Alonso is going to mash in Baltimore and perhaps bring some leadership to a team that needs a veteran presence. I love the big swing here — pun intended.
Which team’s actions (or lack thereof) had you scratching your head?
Doolittle: It’s probably too early to judge any particular team for its offseason in total, but the most perplexing move for me was Baltimore dealing Grayson Rodriguez to the Los Angeles Angels for one year of Taylor Ward. That definitely makes my head itch.
Castillo: The Orioles prioritizing a slugger after acquiring Ward from the Angels was unexpected. Baltimore does not have a shortage of young position player talent. Starting pitching, not offense, was their pressing need — especially after trading Rodriguez for Ward. But the Orioles offered Schwarber a five-year, $150 million deal and quickly pivoted to Alonso when Schwarber chose the Phillies, landing the former Mets first baseman with a five-year, $155 million deal that surpassed industry projections. The pressure remains on Orioles president of baseball operations Mike Elias to acquire a front-line starter, which he has plainly stated is an offseason priority.
Passan: What the New York Mets did over a 24-hour period to end the meetings — miss out on slugger Schwarber, lose closer Díaz to the two-time defending World Series champion Dodgers and lose Alonso, their franchise home run leader, to the Orioles — felt like a bloodletting.
Collapses like the Mets’ have consequences, and president of baseball operations David Stearns is reshaping them to his liking. Defensive liabilities are a no-no. Record-setting deals for relief pitchers are verboten. How the Mets proceed is anyone’s guess, but let’s not forget: Steve Cohen is still the richest owner in baseball, and that opens a world of possibilities. But if this period of inaction isn’t remedied through decisive moves — an influx of talent either through free agency or trades — the Mets’ playoff hopes will end before they’ve begun.
After a lot of buzz ahead of the meetings, it was pretty quiet on the trade front. What is one big deal you think could go down from here?
Gonzalez: The Miami Marlins have been engaged in trade conversations around Edward Cabrera, a 27-year-old starting pitcher with three controllable years remaining. And the Orioles have emerged as a front-runner, as first reported by The Athletic. There are a number of starting pitchers available at the moment. Sonny Gray has already gone from St. Louis to Boston, and Cabrera could be next to move.
Passan: A second baseman is going to move. Maybe multiple. There is too much interest in Ketel Marte, Brendan Donovan and Brandon Lowe for a deal not to be consummated. It’s not just them, either. Jake Cronenworth is available. The Yankees have listened on Jazz Chisholm Jr. The Mets’ overhaul could include moving Jeff McNeil.
Marte and Donovan are the clear top options, with Arizona’s and St. Louis’ respective demands exceptionally high. Which is where, at this point on the calendar, they should be. Especially with all of the teams that could use a second baseman (Boston, Pittsburgh, San Francisco, Seattle, New York Mets) or that would be willing to replace theirs.
Rogers: Where there is smoke, there is fire, meaning Washington Nationals starting pitcher MacKenzie Gore will be moved. His name came up a lot in Orlando and there are enough motivated teams in part because he’s good and affordable. An American League East team, such as the New York Yankees or Orioles, fits for Gore — especially the latter, which might have an extra hitter or two to spare after signing Alonso. Gore fits in Baltimore on several levels.
Who was the biggest winner — and loser — of the week?
Castillo: The Mets were the biggest loser. Losing Diaz and Alonso on consecutive days two weeks after trading Brandon Nimmo is a staggering sequence not just because they are all All-Star-caliber players, but because they were so integral to the franchise and beloved by the fan base. This doesn’t mean the Mets can’t emerge as winners this season. Stearns & Co. have time to rebound. They certainly have moves to make. But this was an ugly week for Mets fans, one they’ll never forget.
Passan: The Dodgers were the biggest winner, filling their clearest need with one of the best closers in baseball, Díaz. Cincinnati, in the meantime, is the biggest loser.
Free agents of Schwarber’s ilk rarely entertain the idea of going to small-market teams, but the Reds had a built-in advantage: He was from there. Considering the scarcity of such possibilities, the Reds — one big bat away from being a real threat to win the NL Central — needed to treat Schwarber’s potential arrival with urgency and embrace their inner spendthrift. They had the money to place the largest bid. They chose not to. And they missed, a true shame considering the strength of their rotation and the likelihood that similar opportunities won’t find them again anytime soon.
Rogers: The Phillies were the biggest winner. Where would they be without Schwarber? Perhaps it was a fait accompli he would be returning, but until he signed on the dotted line, some doubt had to exist. His power simply can’t be replaced, meaning the Phillies’ whole trajectory this offseason would have changed had he left. Now, they can keep moving forward on other important decisions, such as what to do at catcher and if Nick Castellanos still fits their roster. Checking the Schwarber box removes a major potential headache for the franchise. Conversely, even if it was a long shot, the Cincinnati Reds losing out on Schwarber has to hurt. As important as he is to the Phillies, his impact in Cincinnati could have been even more meaningful. He instantly would have elevated the Reds on and off the field.
Which team is under the most pressure to do something big after the meetings?
Castillo: The Mets for the reasons I stated above. Stearns obviously believed he needed to make changes to the roster after such a disappointing season. But this is a major, major overhaul that goes beyond on-field performance. Diaz, Alonso, and Nimmo were beloved core Mets and key to the franchise’s fabric. The pressure is on Stearns to ensure the jarring changes will produce success.
Doolittle: Cincinnati. The Reds muffed the Schwarber situation in a major way. I’m not sure what their actual chances were of signing him, but they should have at least matched what the Phillies offered. The fit between the player and what he’d add to the city and the clubhouse culture while addressing the roster’s biggest need in an emphatic fashion was a set of alignments hard to replicate. There is no suitable pivot from here. But the Reds need to do something — and they need to stop making excuses for why they don’t.
Gonzalez: The Mets. Their decision to not pay a premium for cornerstone players prompted Diaz to leave for L.A., Alonso to depart for Baltimore and their fans, understandably, to be up in arms. Now, they must react. They still have needs to address in their rotation, but they have to get aggressive with their lineup before all of the premium bats come off the board. Going after Cody Bellinger, and potentially stealing him from their crosstown rivals, feels like the natural pivot.
Passan: The Blue Jays have a chance to seize control of the AL East even more than they did in winning the division this year. Whether that means signing Kyle Tucker, Bo Bichette or both, they’re spending in the sort of fashion the Yankees and Red Sox used to — and taking advantage of the window of opportunity that presents is imperative.
Toronto, long mocked for its failures in free agency, is now a destination for players enthralled by the brand of baseball the Blue Jays play as well as the deep pockets of ownership. If you’re going to spend $210 million on Cease, that’s a sign: It’s all-in time, and opportunistic maneuvering would pay huge dividends for Toronto.
Rogers: The Yankees. For once, they are the team that needs to respond after the Blue Jays beat them on the field and now so far in the offseason. Toronto keeps adding while New York should try to at least maintain what it has — meaning Bellinger, or perhaps Tucker, should be in Yankees pinstripes as soon as possible. If the Yankees can add Imai, they’ll match Toronto’s addition of Cease. That would be a good thing. The two teams aren’t that far apart in talent, but Yankees general manager Brian Cashman can’t take his foot off the gas. The pressure is on in New York again.
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Bill Connelly
The “Bowls are dead!” chorus is growing louder. Notre Dame opted out after what had to feel like one of the crueler playoff snubs imaginable (non-2023 Florida State edition, anyway). So did Kansas State and Iowa State (who, to be fair, lost their head coaches and had basically taken a bowl trip to Ireland to start the season already). When the Birmingham Bowl was looking for an opponent for Georgia Southern, it had to search pretty deep into the bin of 5-7 teams before finding one willing and able to make the flight. The vibes have certainly been better.
Once the field is set, however, the vibes don’t matter. With two delightful Saturday matchups — Prairie View A&M vs. South Carolina State in the Cricket Celebration bowl at noon ET, then Boise State vs. Washington in the Bucked Up LA Bowl Hosted by Gronk at 8 p.m. (with Army-Navy in between, of course) — the train leaves the station. Then we’re off on a three-week journey from Atlanta to Boise and Frisco and Hawaii and Boston and Birmingham and El Paso and all points in between.
Some teams will be more excited to be there than others, and some players will opt out, and the show will go on regardless. We’ll soak in the last college football we can get, we’ll see players dump french fries and mayonnaise (in separate bowl games, though that’d be delightful together) on victorious coaches, we’ll murder an anthropomorphized Pop-Tart, and we’ll all have a lovely time.
The deader we pretend bowls are, the more entertaining they turn out to be. To prepare you for the silliness, I’m here to lump each bowl game — not including first-round College Football Playoff games, which technically aren’t bowls, or the Fiesta and Peach Bowl semifinals, which don’t have any teams yet — into 13 categories. (Some show up in multiple categories. It’s fine.)
Here’s something you need to know about each game on the forever-loaded bowl schedule.
The usurpers start their run
CFP Quarterfinal at the Capital One Orange Bowl: James Madison–Oregon winner vs. No. 4 Texas Tech (Jan. 1)
CFP Quarterfinal at the Rose Bowl Game Presented by Prudential: Alabama–Oklahoma winner vs. No. 1 Indiana (Jan. 1)
Generally speaking, I remain of the belief that the College Football Playoff quarterfinals should be at home stadiums and that the four bowls currently used for the quarterfinals should be used to pair off the top eight non-playoff teams in the most attractive possible matchups. This year, we could have gotten a Texas-USC Rose Bowl, or Vanderbilt in the Sugar Bowl, or maybe a postseason Holy War between BYU and Utah in the Cotton Bowl. (And hey, would Notre Dame have so quickly opted out of bowl participation if the promise of a Notre Dame-Michigan Orange Bowl loomed instead? Perhaps, but go with me here.)
I’m not the biggest fan of these bowls basically being used as neutral-site venues for a playoff game. I remember last year’s incredible Arizona State-Texas quarterfinal, for instance, but I had to think for a moment to remember that it was technically also the Peach Bowl. To me that almost dilutes the value of these major bowls.
The best way around this problem, however, is when teams like Indiana or Texas Tech — college football’s greatest usurpers at the moment — are involved. Indiana and Ohio State played in a Big Ten championship game last week that had almost no playoff consequences, but you couldn’t tell that to Indiana fans who desperately wanted to see their team both pull one over on the Buckeyes for the first time since 1988 and win a share of their first Big Ten title (and earn their first Rose Bowl berth) since 1967. The Hoosiers will play — and be favored against — a college football blue blood there, too, be it Oklahoma or Alabama. They will obviously hope to play two more games after this one, but this will still feel like an awfully big deal.
Texas Tech, meanwhile, will be playing in its first Orange Bowl. It is an injustice that the Red Raiders weren’t sent to the far closer Cotton Bowl — Ohio State was sent there instead, and there’s a chance it could create a bit of a home-field advantage for the Buckeyes’ opponent if they face Texas A&M there — but it is still a neat rarity for a program that is successfully spending its way into the big time.
For all the problems facing this sport at the moment, we could see Indiana winning the Rose Bowl and Texas Tech winning the Orange Bowl, clinching a semifinal appearance against each other and assuring that one of them will play the national title. That’s pretty cool. (Granted, we also could end up with Alabama-Oregon or something far more familiar.)
Dynasties in the making?
CFP Quarterfinal at the Goodyear Cotton Bowl Classic: Miami–Texas A&M winner vs. No. 2 Ohio State Buckeyes (Dec. 31)
CFP Quarterfinal at the Allstate Sugar Bowl: Tulane–Ole Miss winner vs. No. 3 Georgia (Jan. 1)
It is a delightful work of symmetry that we have usurpers on one side of the bracket and the heaviest of heavyweights on the other. Of the past four national titles, Ohio State and Georgia have won three. The Buckeyes are the defending champs, and for all of the talk about parity in the SEC, the Bulldogs, national champs in 2021 and 2022, have won three of the last four conference titles and have played for seven of the last eight.
Ohio State is playing in the Cotton Bowl for the third straight season — even if last year’s win over Texas very much falls into the “it was a semifinal in Arlington more than it was the Cotton Bowl” category — and is visiting Jerry World for the fifth time in nine years. No matter how familiar the Buckeyes are with the terrain, however, they won’t be that familiar with their opponent: They’ll either be playing Texas A&M for the first time since the 1999 Sugar Bowl or Miami for the first time since 2011.
Georgia, meanwhile, will be either playing a Cinderella — if Tulane can avenge a blowout loss to Ole Miss early in 2025 — or facing a rematch of one of the SEC’s best games of 2025. The Dawgs went on a 17-0 run over the final 13 minutes to beat Lane Kiffin’s Rebels 43-35 on Oct. 18. Granted, they’re not Kiffin’s Rebels anymore, and a lot will have changed in two months. But either upstarts will pull upsets in the Cotton and Sugar Bowls, or we’ll get our first Ohio State-Georgia game since their incredible 2022 playoff game in Atlanta.
My five favorite non-playoff bowls
Bucked Up LA Bowl Hosted by Gronk: Boise State vs. Washington (Dec. 13)
I ended up with five different reasons to pick these five games. Boise State-Washington is a pretty fun regional semi-rivalry that tends to produce either fun, tight Boise State wins or statement blowouts from UW. Both the Broncos and Huskies, meanwhile, are young enough to be hoping for big things in 2026, and both could use a positive result as a nice springboard.
Sheraton Hawai’i Bowl: California vs. Hawai’i (Dec. 24)
California-Hawai’i might as well be called the JKS Bowl. Cal quarterback Jaron-Keawe Sagapolutele, a native of Ewa Beach, Hawai’i, has committed to returning to Berkeley next season — despite the fact that we don’t know what offensive coordinator new head coach Tosh Lupoi is going to hire — and he gets a homecoming game of sorts back on the islands.
Go Bowling Military Bowl: Pittsburgh vs. East Carolina (Dec. 27)
Pitt-ECU is just going to be a mess. A wonderful mess. The Panthers and Pirates played two of last season’s wildest bowls — Pitt lost a six-overtime slugfest to Toledo, ECU won a brawl-plagued (or brawl-blessed?) rivalry game over NC State — and they both tend to live right on the line between aggression and a total lack of control. Hell yeah.
Cheez-It Citrus Bowl: No. 13 Texas vs. No. 18 Michigan (Dec. 31)
Texas-Michigan is, quite simply, a helmet game. I’m a fan of underdogs, and I preach the value of college football socialism as much as anyone, but I’m allowed to enjoy helmet games.
ReliaQuest Bowl: No. 14 Vanderbilt vs. No. 23 Iowa (Dec. 31)
Vandy-Iowa means that the final chapter in the Diego Pavia story will come against a physical and often confusing Iowa defense and a generally underrated Hawkeyes team. This should be a max-effort game from both sides, too.
Disappointment Bowls, Part 1 (crushed CFP dreams)
Isleta New Mexico Bowl: No. 25 North Texas vs. San Diego State (Dec. 27)
Pop-Tarts Bowl: No. 12 BYU vs. No. 22 Georgia Tech (Dec. 27)
Cheez-It Citrus Bowl: No. 13 Texas vs. No. 18 Michigan (Dec. 31)
ReliaQuest Bowl: No. 14 Vanderbilt vs. No. 23 Iowa (Dec. 31)
SRS Distribution Las Vegas Bowl: No. 15 Utah vs. Nebraska (Dec. 31)
Granted, the First Team Out of the 2025 CFP, Notre Dame, isn’t playing in the postseason at all. But the likes of BYU, Texas, Vandy, Utah and American Conference title game loser North Texas dealt with their share of disappointment too. Who uses the snub and/or letdowns as fuel, and who’s already punted on the season?
Disappointment Bowls, Part 2 (disappointing 2025 campaigns)
Bad Boy Mowers Pinstripe Bowl: Penn State vs. Clemson (Dec. 27)
Kinder’s Texas Bowl: No. 21 Houston vs. LSU (Dec. 27)
Liberty Mutual Music City Bowl: Tennessee vs. Illinois (Dec. 30)
Tony the Tiger Sun Bowl: Arizona State vs. Duke (Dec. 31)
Penn State, Clemson, LSU, Arizona State, Tennessee and Illinois all began the season in the preseason AP top 15, and they’re all currently unranked. For Penn State and Clemson, the disappointments came early in the season, and they spent the latter portion of the year gathering themselves and trying to make something of the campaign. The Nittany Lions rallied to win their last three games to reach bowl eligibility, and the Tigers won their last four to finish 7-5. The Pinstripe Bowl winner will therefore actually finish the season feeling pretty good about itself, all things considered. Arizona State might, too, considering the Sun Devils could still end up 9-4 despite an injury to quarterback Sam Leavitt derailing their hopes.
The 2026 Heisman race begins
Bucked Up LA Bowl Hosted by Gronk: Washington (Demond Williams Jr.) vs. Boise State (Dec. 13)
Sheraton Hawai’i Bowl: California (Jaron-Keawe Sagapolutele) vs. Hawai’i (Dec. 24)
TaxSlayer Gator Bowl: Missouri (Ahmad Hardy) vs. No. 19 Virginia (Dec. 27)
Valero Alamo Bowl: No. 16 USC (Jayden Maiava) vs. TCU (Dec. 30)
Cheez-It Citrus Bowl: No. 13 Texas (Arch Manning) vs. No. 18 Michigan (Bryce Underwood) (Dec. 31)
Ohio State’s Julian Sayin and Jeremiah Smith (and Bo Jackson?), Georgia’s Gunner Stockton, Ole Miss’ Trinidad Chambliss and Kewan Lacy, Miami’s Malachi Toney, Texas A&M’s Marcel Reed and other potential 2026 Heisman candidates will be plying their trade in the CFP. Oregon’s Dante Moore, too, if he doesn’t go pro. But despite being outside of the playoff’s realm, other potential candidates will have a chance to build plenty of 2026 buzz. Can you imagine what will happen if, say, Arch Manning throws for 300-plus on Michigan? You thought this year’s buzz was loud?
Embrace the silliness
Bucked Up LA Bowl Hosted by Gronk: Boise State vs. Washington (Dec. 13)
Famous Idaho Potato Bowl: Washington State vs. Utah State (Dec. 22)
Bush’s Boca Raton Bowl of Beans: Toledo vs. Louisville (Dec. 23)
Pop-Tarts Bowl: No. 12 BYU vs. No. 22 Georgia Tech (Dec. 27)
Snoop Dogg Arizona Bowl: Miami (Ohio) vs. Fresno State (Dec. 27)
Duke’s Mayo Bowl: Wake Forest vs. Mississippi State (Jan. 2)
It’s OK to admit it: For some games, the teams, players and coaches are just pawns for other types of entertainment value. Boise State-Washington could be very entertaining on its own, but it’s going to be awash with Rob Gronkowski appearances, too. The same goes for the Snoop Dogg Arizona Bowl.
Either Utah State’s Bronco Mendenhall or Washington State interim coach Jesse Bobbit will get showered with french fries at the end of the Famous Idaho Potato Bowl. The winner of the Bush’s Boca Raton Bowl of Beans — a real thing! — allegedly won’t get showered with beans, but there’s still time for important people to change their minds on that one. And at this point, the lore of the Pop-Tarts Bowl and Mayo Bowl are about as well-known as the sport itself.
1:34
‘Yeah, boy!’ Flava Flav revealed as mascot during mayo bath
Flava Flav is revealed as the celebrity in the mayo mascot uniform as Minnesota coach P.J. Fleck gets doused in mayonnaise.
Either Wake Forest’s Jake Dickert or Mississippi State’s Jeff Lebby will be finding mayonnaise in places he never dreamed of come the morning of Jan. 3. College football!
Ending Year 1 with a bang
The transfer portal has redefined what it means to be a first-year coach. Either by choice or by necessity, you can now almost re-craft your entire roster right out of the gate. This goes horribly for some, obviously, but not even including some schools like Washington State, where the first-year guy has already left, we have a number of first-year success stories looking to keep the positivity going.
Cricket Celebration Bowl: Prairie View A&M (Tremaine Jackson) vs. South Carolina State (Dec. 13)
People of a certain age (read: mine) will forever remember Prairie View A&M as the school that lost an epic 80 straight games in the 1980s and 1990s. The Aggies have seen successful since then — four SWAC West division titles, two SWAC titles — but now they’ll get their first Celebration Bowl spotlight thanks to last week’s upset of Jackson State in the SWAC title game. And they got here with a first-year coach who could become a very big name soon.
Tremaine Jackson is 50-15 in his short time as a head coach, and in the past two years he has brought Valdosta State to the Division II national title game and won the SWAC with Prairie View. PVAMU will face second-year coach Chennis Berry and SC State, and my SP+ ratings have the game as almost a perfect tossup. A great game to start bowl season.
IS4S Salute to Veterans Bowl: Jacksonville State (Charles Kelly) vs. Troy (Dec. 13)
JLAB Birmingham Bowl: Appalachian State (Dowell Loggains) vs. Georgia Southern (Dec. 29)
I wanted to isolate these two because of underrated bitterness: Jacksonville State and Troy are in-state rivals who will be playing each other in Mobile, Alabama, right in between the two schools. That one should be feisty enough that it almost made my favorite bowls list. Meanwhile, App State and Georgia Southern are former FCS powers that don’t like each other much either, and their first game this season, a 25-23 Eagles win, was great.
Myrtle Beach Bowl Presented by Engine: Kennesaw State (Jerry Mack) vs. Western Michigan (Dec. 19)
Famous Idaho Potato Bowl: Utah State (Bronco Mendenhall) vs. Washington State (Dec. 22)
Scooter’s Coffee Frisco Bowl: UNLV (Dan Mullen) vs. Ohio (Dec. 23)
Rate Bowl: New Mexico (Jason Eck) vs. Minnesota (Dec. 26)
SERVPRO First Responder Bowl: Florida International (Willie Simmons) vs. UTSA (Dec. 26)
Snoop Dogg Arizona Bowl: Fresno State (Matt Entz) vs. Miami (Ohio) (Dec. 27)
Lockheed Martin Armed Forces Bowl: Rice (Scott Abell) vs. Texas State (Jan. 2)
Duke’s Mayo Bowl: Wake Forest (Jake Dickert) vs. Mississippi State (Jan. 2)
Finishing strong
One method I enjoy for measuring which teams are particularly hot or cold at a given time is taking a weighted five-game average of how much teams are over- or underachieving against SP+ projections (weighted so that the most recent game takes on five times weight, the second-most recent game four times weight and so on).
At the end of the regular season, there were 15 teams with a weighted average of plus-9 PPG or better. That includes three playoff teams (Texas Tech, Tulane and Miami) and teams such as Wisconsin and Oklahoma State, which finished far short of bowl eligibility. But a few other teams, listed below with their PPG overachievement, could head into the offseason feeling like they have major momentum.
StaffDNA Cure Bowl: South Florida (+10.7) vs. Old Dominion (Dec. 13)
Famous Idaho Potato Bowl: Washington State (+10.9) vs. Utah State (Dec. 22)
SERVPRO First Responder Bowl: Florida International (+16.2) vs. UTSA (Dec. 26)
Snoop Dogg Arizona Bowl: Fresno State (+9.2) vs. Miami (Ohio) vs. (Dec. 27)
Trust & Will Holiday Bowl: No. 17 Arizona (+11.0) vs. SMU (Jan. 2)
USF and Washington State have already lost their head coaches — man oh man, does Wazzu deserve a period of time with some semblance of stability — but at the very least, FIU, Fresno State and Arizona have a chance to build major offseason positivity.
Redemption time
On the flip side, a few teams limped into bowl season at the end of a run of underachievement. Here are five games featuring teams that hope a bowl will turn bad feelings around. (Three of them already have interim coaches.)
Radiance Technologies Independence Bowl: Coastal Carolina (-16.1) vs. Louisiana Tech (Dec. 30)
SRS Distribution Las Vegas Bowl: Nebraska (-13.8) vs. No. 15 Utah (Dec. 31)
New Orleans Bowl: Southern Miss (-13.2) vs. Western Kentucky (Dec. 23)
AutoZone Liberty Bowl: Cincinnati (-13.0) vs. Navy (Jan. 2)
Union Home Mortgage Gasparilla Bowl: Memphis (-12.3) vs. NC State (Dec. 19)
Congratulations, you get to play a service academy!
Wasabi Fenway Bowl: Army vs. UConn (Dec. 27)
AutoZone Liberty Bowl: Navy vs. Cincinnati (Jan. 2)
The Cincinnati staff and UConn interim staff will both try to navigate the distractions of bowl season (and the looming portal season) while studying how to defend very annoying option offenses. Have fun with that.
7-6 sounds much better than 6-7 (and 6-7 sounds better than 5-8)
Quite a few teams had to eke out bowl eligibility and will now try to finish above .500. Meanwhile, recent times have brought us something new: a 5-8 record, obviously earned only by teams that sneak into a bowl at 5-7, then lose. Six teams belong to the 5-8 Club — 2016 North Texas, 2019 Army, 2021 Rutgers, 2022 Rice, 2023 Hawai’i and 2024 Louisiana Tech — and three teams will be attempting to avoid the ignominy. Rice will be looking to avoid becoming the first two-time member.
68 Ventures Bowl: Louisiana (6-6) vs. Delaware (6-6) (Dec. 13)
Xbox Bowl: Missouri State vs. Arkansas State (6-6) (Dec. 18)
Famous Idaho Potato Bowl: Washington State (6-6) vs. Utah State (6-6) (Dec. 22)
GameAbove Sports Bowl: Central Michigan vs. Northwestern (6-6) (Dec. 26)
SERVPRO First Responder Bowl: Florida International vs. UTSA (6-6) (Dec. 26)
Bad Boy Mowers Pinstripe Bowl: Penn State (6-6) vs. Clemson (Dec. 27)
JLAB Birmingham Bowl: Georgia Southern vs. Appalachian State (5-7) (Dec. 29)
Radiance Technologies Independence Bowl: Coastal Carolina (6-6) vs. Louisiana Tech (Dec. 30)
Lockheed Martin Armed Forces Bowl: Rice (5-7) vs. Texas State (6-6) (Jan. 2)
Duke’s Mayo Bowl: Wake Forest vs. Mississippi State (5-7) (Jan. 2)
First year, first bowl
68 Ventures Bowl: Louisiana vs. Delaware (Dec. 13)
Xbox Bowl: Missouri State vs. Arkansas State (Dec. 18)
Delaware and Missouri State both enjoyed solid FBS debut campaigns. Delaware needed tight wins over UConn, Middle Tennessee and Louisiana Tech and a season-ending walloping of UTEP to reach 6-6, and Missouri State began the year 2-3 before ripping off five straight wins and finishing 7-5. Now both the Blue Hens (3-point underdogs to Louisiana) and Bears (2.5-point favorites over potential regional rival Arkansas State) hope to boast a perfect all-time bowl record — well, a perfect record in FBS bowls, anyway: MSU went 0-4 in small-school bowls, most recently falling to Stephen F. Austin in the 1989 Pecan Bowl — a few days from now.
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