There have been gamers who have been one of the best gamers of their period, and there have been gamers who have been nice representatives of the sport of baseball.
Willie Mays did each, and he did them on the highest stage.
Mays, who died Tuesday at the age of 93, embodied every little thing that you really want, not solely in a celebrity but additionally in an individual. And the swagger, aptitude and beauty he confirmed over 4 many years in baseball endeared him to the individuals of New York, San Francisco and the rest of the nation.
Mays was the best baseball player the world has ever seen. Possibly one of the best it’ll ever see. While you run down the checklist of accomplishments and accolades for The Say Hey Child, it’s tough to fathom {that a} participant was capable of do all of the issues he completed, even in a 23-year profession:
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1951 NL Rookie of The Yr
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1954 World Sequence champion
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3,293 hits
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660 residence runs
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12 Gold Glove Awards
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2 NL MVP Awards
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24 All-Star Sport choices
Offensively, Mays was a pressure on the plate. He was the second participant in MLB historical past to affix the 600-home run membership, after Babe Ruth, and his 660 profession homers nonetheless rank sixth all-time.
Defensively, Mays had no equal. He was unquestionably baseball’s best heart fielder. Earlier than Ken Griffey Jr., Andruw Jones and Torii Hunter, there was Mays, roaming the Polo Grounds and its large heart subject like a gazelle, making the not possible look mundane. His 12 Gold Glove Awards by a middle fielder stay probably the most all time on the place.
Mays’ over-the-shoulder catch greater than 500 toes from residence plate within the 1954 World Sequence, robbing Vic Wertz of a possible game-winning hit, is taken into account the best catch within the historical past of baseball. Seventy years later, it’s nonetheless identified merely as “The Catch.”
Pink Sox nice Ted Williams was pretty much as good as any participant ever and is enshrined in Cooperstown on the Baseball Corridor of Fame. However Williams might need made probably the most correct assertion within the historical past of baseball: “They invented the All-Star Sport for Willie Mays.”
No. 24’s whole of 24 All-Star nods is surpassed solely by the 25 of his longtime buddy, Hank Aaron. The power to maintain greatness for so long as Mays did is one thing that ought to by no means be taken as a right.
It’s far too straightforward to name Mays a legend. That’s not as a result of the time period is inaccurate or disrespectful. However for arguably the best baseball participant ever, it merely doesn’t do him justice.
We’d even be remiss if we did not level out that Mays’ excellence got here at a time when Black gamers confronted extraordinarily tough challenges coping with bigotry, racism and a society that didn’t embrace them as individuals. Mays, who made his debut 4 years after Jackie Robinson broke MLB’s coloration barrier, was not simply one of many first Black superstars in baseball; he was one of many first Black superstars in U.S. skilled sports activities. And his talents and beauty resonated with Black sports activities followers from coast to coast.
Mays was your favourite participant’s favourite participant, and that’s one thing that adopted him for many years, each whereas he performed and lengthy after he stopped. When Mays performed, he did so with a pleasure, vitality and fervour that resonated with generations of baseball followers and generations of baseball gamers. The response he’d get from a fan who watched him play for 23 years was the identical response he’d obtain from a participant who grew up following him. The reverence and appreciation for every little thing Mays meant to the sport of baseball by no means ceased.
Starting when he was 15 and enjoying for the Birmingham Black Barons at Rickwood Discipline, Mays started an extended, profitable journey to changing into a part of the pantheon of baseball’s immortals. Within the course of, he left the sport and the world in a lot better form than he discovered them.
And even after a Corridor of Fame profession, that’s what made Mays nice. In a room of one of the best gamers on the planet, each when he performed and after, all of them knew he was one of the best.
Willie Mays wasn’t a legend. He was and endlessly will likely be an icon.
