Willie Mays, the Game’s Greatest, RIP

Willie Mays died the other day at the age of 93. He was the oldest living Hall of Fame major league ballplayer. His first MLB manager, Leo Durocher of the New York Giants, called him simply the greatest five-tool player in history. No one, Durocher said, combined Mays’ excellence at hitting, hitting for power, running, fielding, and throwing. Mays’ baseball statistics bear that out. In 22 seasons with the Giants (both New York and San Francisco) and the Mets, he batted .302 over his 22-year career. He amassed 3,293 hits (13th all-time) including 660 home runs (sixth on the all-time list). He is seventh all-time in total runs with 2,068, and twelfth all-time in runs-batted-in with 1,909. He stole 338 bases. He is the only MLB player to have hit both more than 50 homers and 20 triples in single seasons. 

Mays was one of eighteen players to hit four home runs in one game. He won the National League Most Valuable Player Award twice (in 1954 and 1965, eleven years apart) but for 13 straight years he received MVP votes, finishing in the top six in twelve of those years. In those 13 seasons, Mays had at least 70 extra-base hits. And he was incredibly durable. From 1951 (his rookie season) to 1962, Mays played in 1534 of 1555 games. 

Mays’ offensive statistics are only part of the story. He was the greatest defensive center fielder ever. He won 12 golden glove awards and his 7,095 outfield putouts is first all-time. In game 1 of the 1954 World Series, Mays made perhaps the most amazing catch in baseball history. Cleveland Indians’ slugger Vic Wertz hit what should have been a game-winning triple to center field in the Polo Grounds. Mays, playing a bit shallow, outran the ball and made an over-the-shoulder catch. Mays later said that the catch was not as impressive as his throw to second base, which prevented Cleveland runners from advancing after the ball was caught. That play has been known ever since as “The Catch.” And Willie Mays’ glove was aptly described as the place “where triples go to die.”

Sixteen years later, Mays at the age of 39 robbed Cincinnati Reds’ slugger Bobby Tolan of at least a triple by leaping in right-center field, catching the ball, and slamming into the fence at Candlestick Park. Mays made other great catches, including a bare-handed grab of a ball hit by Pittsburgh Pirate first baseman Rocky Nelson. In center field, greatness for Mays was routine. 

Author John Shea noted that Mays seemed to be able to instinctively “visualize the whole game.” This was Mays’ mental approach to baseball, which is often overlooked because of his great athletic abilities. Mays explained it this way: “You’re knowing ahead of time what to do in all situations and making sure to be in the right place when you need to be.” And he played the game with zest. Richard Goldstein described Mays as an “electrifying player of power and grace.” Whether taking an extra base on a single, or scoring from first-base on a routine double, or killing one of those triples in center field, Mays was a joy to watch. As a child, I saw Mays play in person three times, and each time he did not disappoint. In one game at Connie Mack Stadium in Philadelphia, Mays homered over the left field wall. In another game at Connie Mack Stadium, Mays hit two triples off the scoreboard in right center field. In the third game at Shea Stadium in Queens, New York, Mays homered and threw out a runner at home who was trying to score from second base on a single to center field. And that was toward the end of his career.

Mays biographer James Hirsch wrote that “The case for Mays as the game’s greatest player is easy to make but impossible to prove.” “Mays beat you,” Hirsch explained, “in more ways than any other player.” Hirsch concluded that Mays was baseball’s “greatest master.” The legendary Giants’ pitcher Carl Hubbell, who famously used his screwball to strike out “murderers row” (Ruth, Gehrig, Jimmie Foxx, Al Simmons and Joe Cronin) in the 1934 All-Star Game, scouted Mays for the Giants in 1950, and recalled years later: “That was the day I saw the best goddamn baseball player I have ever seen in my life.”

After Mays retired, sportscasters and journalists would occasionally describe a young ballplayer as the “next Willie Mays.” They were always wrong. There was only one Willie Mays. R.I.P. 

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