RIP Dave May

[BrewersSuperCollector]

http://www.masnsports.com/orioles_buzz/2012/10/ex-oriole-dave-may-dead-at-68-in-delaware.html

 

1973 All Star for the Brewers...8th in MVP voting

 

May you be without pain.

[RockCoCougars]

I read the article a few times... and maybe I need a reading comprehension class, but why is May "the answer to one of baseball's weirdest trivia questions"? I know that he was traded for Aaron, but that doesn't seem weird to me.

 

At any rate, sad to hear this. May was one of the better Brewers during the early days. Didn't he have a six hit game as a Brewer?

[mtrebs]

At first I thought the trivia reference was to a question I have seen on my daily MLB/Brewers calendar regarding a player by the last name of May who was born in May and his number was his birthdate...so he ended up having his birthday (month & day) on his jersey. I looked up Dave May on Wikipedia and saw he was born in December, so it must not have been him.

 

Regardless, rest in peace.

 

Edit: I decided to look up who I was thinking of. It was Carlos May: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carlos_May

[ecjimg]

The 73 team was the first brewer team that started it all for me! Wow this makes me feel old. I was happy to see him attend the closing of county stadium ceremony.

I thought it was his teammate Johnny Briggs that had the 6 hit game.

[JimH5]

Sad news, indeed. I understand he had been having health problems for awhile.

 

He was Saberhagen-ish in his good year/bad year run with the team, and led the AL in total bases in 1973.

[JohnBriggs12]

The 73 team was the first brewer team that started it all for me! Wow this makes me feel old. I was happy to see him attend the closing of county stadium ceremony.

I thought it was his teammate Johnny Briggs that had the 6 hit game.

 

 

Who would know better than I that it was Briggs and not May with the 6 hit game on August 4, 1973 in Cleveland?

 

It was that 73 team, led by May, Briggsie, and Boomer Scott, that was the first Brewer team to really win over fans to this new franchise. From June 1 to June 18, they won 15 of 16, and vaulted into first place. Fans took this team to heart right then. May later went on to record a 24 game hit streak that year (he hit safely in 32 of 33).

 

Though they faded in the 2nd half (which would become a common thing in Del Crandall's tenure), that was one of my favorite Brewer teams of all time. In addition to those 3, it had Coluccio, Pedro Garcia, Jim Colborn (who won 20 that year), Slaton, Darrell Porter. Great memories.

 

Sad day.

[JimH5]

I think it was that 1973 Brewers team that (soon-to-be-former) ESPNer Steve Berthiaume has said that he has spent hours and hours working to reproduce his MLB The Show.

 

I think he tweaks the facial and body features to get them as true-to-life as possible.

 

He spent some of his youth living in the area and also loves that 73 team.

[JohnBriggs12]

You had to be around in those days to appreciate that team and the atmosphere. Those crowds were nowhere near as big as today, but trust me, we made way more noise. I don't know when it started for people to stand and make noise when the other team is batting (I still don't get that) but back then, that was strictly verboten. You made noise when your team was batting and their pitcher was getting rattled. I remember games in 73 and 74 when opposing pitchers just lost it walking in guys as the County Stadium crowds just howled.

 

I was in my early 20's then. I was a bit too young to have clear memories of the Braves championship teams, but I felt the heartache along with all the rest of my generation when the Braves left town. Their leaving affected us more so than our elders who were fans of other teams before the Braves got there and just went back to following the Cubs or Sox or whoever. Now we were able to get to games on our own, and we had a lot of pent up emotions over losing the Braves, and were so eager for this new team to make things right. So we got loud, very loud, when this new team showed life.

[JohnBriggs12]

Forgot Dave May was part of a father/son combo to play for the Brewers. His son Derrick was a Brewer briefly in 1995. Off the top of my head, the only other father/son combo I can remember to play for the Brewers were Tito and Terry Francona.

[splitterpfj]

I've been hearing from his son, Derrick, he has posted a bunch of his dad's old baseball cards, etc...

 

https://www.facebook.com/derrick.may.18?fref=ts

[RockCoCougars]

I should have known that the 6 hit game was Briggs. The hitting streak must have been what kept getting Dave's name 'current' over the years.

 

I remember being stoked when I heard that Derrick May was getting a NRI ('95)... Back in those days, that qualified as a big off-season acquisition.

 

Does anyone have any clue why the Baltimore writer said May was the answer to a 'weird' trivia question'?

 

At any rate, sounds like he was a great guy who will be missed.

[brewerfan82]

I read the article a few times... and maybe I need a reading comprehension class, but why is May "the answer to one of baseball's weirdest trivia questions"? I know that he was traded for Aaron, but that doesn't seem weird to me.

 

Yep, that was it. I posted a question about it in the comments and the author responded with "the question referred to the fact that he was once traded for Hank Aaron." Kind of disappointing. I too was hoping for something more interesting, perhaps even "weird."

[RockCoCougars]

I read the article a few times... and maybe I need a reading comprehension class, but why is May "the answer to one of baseball's weirdest trivia questions"? I know that he was traded for Aaron, but that doesn't seem weird to me.

 

Yep, that was it. I posted a question about it in the comments and the author responded with "the question referred to the fact that he was once traded for Hank Aaron." Kind of disappointing. I too was hoping for something more interesting, perhaps even "weird."

 

Thanks for checking that out. I would say that 'Who was traded for Hank Aaron" is a good trivia question in a back of the baseball card kind of way, but not weird. Weird would be something like 'Which former major league OF started refusing to play on Fridays and Saturdays due to religious observance', or 'Which former MLB pitcher enjoyed eating iguana meat.'

 

BTW: Somewhere, Roger Alexander is wondering when he is going to get his due.

[Austin Tatious]

The 73 team was the first brewer team that started it all for me! Wow this makes me feel old. I was happy to see him attend the closing of county stadium ceremony.

I thought it was his teammate Johnny Briggs that had the 6 hit game.

 

 

Who would know better than I that it was Briggs and not May with the 6 hit game on August 4, 1973 in Cleveland?

 

It was that 73 team, led by May, Briggsie, and Boomer Scott, that was the first Brewer team to really win over fans to this new franchise. From June 1 to June 18, they won 15 of 16, and vaulted into first place. Fans took this team to heart right then. May later went on to record a 24 game hit streak that year (he hit safely in 32 of 33).

 

Though they faded in the 2nd half (which would become a common thing in Del Crandall's tenure), that was one of my favorite Brewer teams of all time. In addition to those 3, it had Coluccio, Pedro Garcia, Jim Colborn (who won 20 that year), Slaton, Darrell Porter. Great memories.

 

Sad day.

 

Great story. I'd love to hear more. I was a little kid in the late 70's. May have been '77 or '78 where we opened with series with Yankees and Bosox and we did really well. That's when I got into it, although I have a hazy memory of the all star game being in County Stadium too.