What did Willie Mays and Donald Sutherland have in common? Nothing.
Except an overriding desire to excel in each’s craft.
Mays was a true wonder to watch as he dominated baseball with an innate ability to hit well, exhibit acrobatic feats in centerfield and steal bases. His glove work in the wide expanse of centerfield was something to behold.
Mays was the whole package, a star in the baseball constellation. He embodied an unparalleled flair.
Sutherland was an oddball actor with huge ears who filled the cinematic screen with artistic antics that drew audiences to his idiosyncratic roles. Who can forget his acting in “The Dirty Dozen” or “M.A.S.H.”?
Sutherland carved out his persona, not as a leading man, but as a first-team supporting actor. He, too, was special.
Both died this week. Mays was 93. Sutherland was 88.
Three friends in their late 70s, two raised in and around New York City and the other in Oklahoma City, engaged enthusiastically in email chatter this week about Mays and his amazing athleticism. The baseball nostalgia was infectious( and devoid of politics). Periodically I would interject, in vain, to effuse about Cal Ripken and Brooks Robinson in “who’s the best in baseball annals?”
Mays was the emailers’ primary choice. I watched from the digital sidelines. Memories of heroes fade, but not disappear.
One of my NYC friends shared a story about a visit that Willie Mays made to this friend’s former elementary school in 1973. I suppose it ran in a school magazine. The short narrative was more about the school cook, who had dated Mays, a Harlem native, in their teens, than about the baseball great. She dominated the welcome party and the gracious Mays’ attention.
As Hawkeye Pierce in M.A.S.H., a movie set in Korea during the Korean War, Sutherland portrayed a gifted surgeon who irreverently flouted Army rules while pursuing nurses with abandon. His devil-may-care attitude and prankish behavior masked his hatred of war. He had no respect for authority.
While Mays sought perfection, Sutherland mastered the art of humor. If a movie were a canvas filled with bright colors and dark clouds, Sutherland sought to project an off-color presence, a thorn in the side of conventional conduct.
Had Sutherland performed in a baseball movie, he would have faced the pitcher dressed outlandishly, brandishing a bat as if it were a sword to puncture the deadly serious duel between the batter and the hurler.
Modern-day baseball offers amazing athletes to the appreciative public. But few, if any, measure up to the incomparable Willie “Say Hey” Mays.
The world of commercial film, informed by talented actors, is bereft of an iconic performer like Donald Sutherland. He was determined to imbue his characters with the vision of creative directors and his inimitable style.
Columnist Howard Freedlander retired in 2011 as Deputy State Treasurer of the State of Maryland. Previously, he was the executive officer of the Maryland National Guard. He also served as community editor for Chesapeake Publishing, lastly at the Queen Anne’s Record-Observer. After 44 years in Easton, Howard and his wife, Liz, moved in November 2020 to Annapolis, where they live with Toby, a King Charles Cavalier Spaniel who has no regal bearing, just a mellow, enticing disposition.
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