Say Hey!

Willie Mays passed away yesterday, at the age of 93. This is an attempt to capture part of why he’ll be so missed.

One of the fun things about baseball is that fans argue about everything. The designated hitter? ¹ The best second baseman ever?² The best team of the 70s?? ³ The greatest living player?

Until yesterday, there had been no argument about that last one for many years. It was Willie Mays, one of the greatest players ever, and one of the few who was great at everything a baseball player does. People talk about the five tools, and, well:

• Hit for power: 660 Home runs.
• Hit for average: .301 lifetime. One batting title, nine seasons in the top ten.
• Fielding and Throwing: Twelve Gold gloves. He’d have more, but the award didn’t exist until he’d been in the league six years.
• Speed: 229 Stolen bases, led the league four times.

Another amazing thing about Willie was his longevity (at baseball as well as life.) He played from age 19 until 42, starting from the first until 41. He has an MVP season at 34 and a legitimate all-star season at 40. ⁴. Yet another was his baseball IQ. Here’s Willie explaining the ideas behind his famous World Series catch of Vic Wertz’s long fly ball.

Even given all these gaudy numbers, his career was much more. He’s the consensus best center fielder in baseball history. No runner ever took an extra base on Willie’s arm. Here’s a video where Vin Scully, the longtime Dodger announcer, tells Willie “You were my favorite player”, despite being a bitter rival.

Twitter is full of tributes, much of it being grown men admitting to crying when they heard the news. Some of this isn’t just Willie. All the postwar greats are gone now: Williams, Aaron, Mantle, both Robinsons, etc. But, especially for Giants fans, Willie has a special place in our hearts. He was a poor kid from nowhere who became, by combining native ability, a keen intellect, and hard work, the greatest Giant there ever was or will be.

1. Bad.
2. Morgan.
3. Orioles.
4. He played in 24 altogether.