The greatest baseball player to ever live died last week, Willie Mays was 93.
Among history’s most feared hitters, Mays was one of only seven players in MLB history to retire with more than 3,000 hits and 500 home runs in their careers.
And one of only two to accomplish THE feat without steroids!
THE home runs and base hits speak to Willie’s ability to hit for both power and average, retiring with 660 home runs among his career’s 3293 hits. But they make no mention of other gifts Willie possessed which allowed sucj greatness: prowess on the basepaths and a aremarkable ability to field his position and accurately throw the ball once he had.
A virtuoso in each discipline, Mays was the rarest of baseball breeds: a five-tool player among the greatest—in each aspects of the game.
THE Say Hey Kid was selected to the All-Star team in each of his 24 seasons, tying Hall of Famers Henry Aaron and Stan Musial for most appearances in baseball’s midsummer classic. Selected by his peers, in Mays’ era the All-Star team was selected by a vote of the players rather than by a popular vote of the fans as is the case today, ensuring that late in his careers when his skills had diminished he still receive that honor.
In-fact many of Mays’ peers agree that Willie was the GOAT!
As a member of the New York Giants Mays patrolled baseball’s largest ever center field, New York’s Polo Grounds, measuring 483 feet from home plate to the base of the wall in center.
Down the lines the Polo Grounds measured 279 and 258 feet to left and right, creating alleys which stretched 450 feet from home plate. Staggering dimensions by the standards of modern MLB ballparks which average just over 400 feet to dead center leaving the alleys comparably reduced.
It was covering center field in the expanse of the Polo Grounds where Willie Mays first became legend, propagated by a catch Mays made in game 1 of the 1954 World Series, Mays’ rookie year.
THE catch is still considered the greatest in World Series history, the games announcer remarking calling the catch “an optical illusion.”
You can see the catch here.
Is This Seat Taken?
Two years after his retirement from baseball Willie was asked to speak at the annual father-son dinner at the Hackley School in Tarrytown, New York, where his stories of life as a professional baseball star thrilled those in attendance.
After the presentation dinner was served and Willie took an empty seat at a table near the podium, no doubt looking to quietly enjoy his meal.
But if that’s what Willie was looking for, he should have taken his dinner to go. Or at-least not selected a seat next to a 12-year-old super-fan with few interests beyond baseball.
And little regard for his quiet enjoyment!
Say What?
The words of my conversation with the great ballplayer have been lost to time as has the scrap of paper bearing his autograph Willie gave me that night, though I maintain optimism for finding the latter.
THE autograph lays hidden among the boxes of memorabilia scattered across my closets. Poorly organized, the system is not set up for ready access: the only sorting being by era with Willie’s era being the furthest buried.
But while I did not find that scrap the search has still been fruitful, allowing a retrospective on a period of my life not often recalled. THE retrospective, like that night in 1975, was a gift from the great Mays–who I hope now rests in peace.
The search recalled that Mays was not the only Hall of Famer that I’ve had the good fortune to meet, having come across these three on one day in 1980.
But that’s another story!
New episode of THE Opportunists coming Tuesday.
