Willie Mays, the best baseball player to ever grace the game, died on Tuesday, June 17, at the age of 93.

Mays has always been my childhood hero and favorite baseball player. He could hit for average and power, steal bases, catch every ball that came his way in centerfield, and throw like no one else. He loved playing baseball and he played with the childhood joy that was forever captured in his immortal nickname: The “Say Hey Kid.” The actress Tallulah Bankhead said, “There have been only two geniuses in the world—Willie Mays and Willie Shakespeare.”

You see, I wasn’t alone in that hero worship. Not by a long shot.

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Isn’t Willie Mays wonderful?

People—famous people—seemed to know their place in the pecking order when it came to Willie Mays.

• Woody Allen, in the movie Manhattan, said Willie Mays was one of the things that made life worth living, right after Groucho Marx but before “those incredible apples and pears by Cezanne.” I don’t know that I’d put Groucho before Willie.
• “If he could cook,” his first (and most beloved manager) Leo Durocher said, “I’d marry him.”
• Sportswriter Bob Stevens penned a classic line after Mays hit a game-winning triple in the eighth inning of the 1959 All-Star Game, which went, “Harvey Kuenn gave it honest pursuit, but the only center fielder in baseball who could have caught it hit it.”  
• “Isn’t Willie Mays wonderful?” the first lady of American theater, Ethel Barrymore, asked.

Carl Hubbell, the “Meal Ticket” pitcher of the 1930s who famously struck out Babe Ruth, Lou Gehrig and three others consecutively in the 1934 All-Star Game, was at the Polo Grounds with New York Cubans owner Alex Pompez in 1950 to scout an 18-year-old Willie Mays. Hubbell watches amazing defensive plays throughout the day, sees Mays hit a home run with a bat that moves through the strike zone faster than any of the greats he played with, and is convinced.  Years later, after Mays became a Giant, Hubbell would . . .

“. . . relive that day in the Polo Grounds when the Giants truly discovered the talent, the power, and the voice of Willie Mays. ‘Gentlemen,’ he’d say regally, ‘that was the day I saw the best goddamn baseball player I have ever seen in my life.’”

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Everyone has a story

Like so many others, I’ve written about my love affair with Mays, beginning in 2010 with Willie Mays and America’s oldest professional ballpark.

The time Mays spent in the Negro Leagues and the celebration of the 100th anniversary of Birmingham’s historic Rickwood Field, America’s oldest professional baseball park, are themes in this post. The Alabama native got his start with the Birmingham Black Barons in 1948 and, as fate would have it, his death came the same week baseball came back to Rickwood Field.

Three other fan letters include:

• Willie Mays: The Life, The Legend (2010)
• The Say Hey Kid turns 90 (2021)
• Giving thanks for childhood heroes (2022)

Once I even had Mays lead off what became a very popular MTC post on retirement: Bashing into joy. I chose Willie as the lead on that subject because it was said of Mays that the only thing he could not do on a baseball diamond was stay young forever.

Willie, you see, played too long after his skills had declined and the joy was harder to find. Those last years were not kind.

We’re all the young Willie Mays early in life, believing we can chase down fly balls forever. Yet when one has to make a decision to let go of a place in the world there can be a big difference between understanding what’s necessary intellectually and owning that choice through emotional acceptance.

I’ve owned the fact that I’m getting older and that I’m now retired. I’m not quite ready, however, to see all my childhood heroes move on.

Joe Posnanski seems to understand that feeling.

“The sky seems a little less bright today. The music sounds just a bit bluer. The stars feel farther away.

Willie Mays is gone.

He stopped playing baseball more than 50 years ago, and yet you can see him, even if you never actually saw him. He’s chasing a fly ball, and he will never get there in time. Sayers was effortless. Orr was effortless. Griffey was effortless. But Mays? He runs like he’s racing after a missed bus. He exerts every muscle, each limb seems to have a mind of its own, and he moves with such speed and abandon that his baseball cap holds on for dear life until it cannot hold on and goes flying off his head like a rodeo cowboy getting bucked off a bull.“

I never got to see Mays play live, but I watched him every chance I could get (which wasn’t enough in those days) on television.

“But, of course, it was never just about playing baseball. The 660 home runs and 1,326 extra base hits and 339 stolen bases and 12 Gold Gloves tell a fine story. But none of those numbers are records. None of those are singular in baseball history. None of those get to the heart of Willie Mays.

No, at the heart is something indescribable.

At the heart is joy. That’s what Willie Mays radiated, even on those off days when he wasn’t feeling especially joyful. Watch him turn his back and take off after Vic Wertz’s fly ball in ’54. Think of the time he sprinted after Rocky Nelson’s shot and, having run out of time, simply snagged the ball out of the air barehanded.

‘Did you see that?’ he squeaked at Durocher when he got back to the dugout.

‘No, Willie,’ Durocher said straight-faced. ‘Can you go out there and do it again?’“

It is hard to believe that Willie Mays is gone.

“Only, of course, he isn’t gone. Willie Mays will never be gone.“

Thanks for all the incredible memories. And for the joy. Rest in peace, Say Hey.

More to come . . .

DJB

Photos: The Catch, Willie Mays; statue outside Oracle Park