Tribute to Willie Mays

Subscribe to my blog for automatic updates and as a Free Bonus get instant access to my two Free Special Reports: “Memorable World Series Moments,” and “Gary’s Handy Dandy World Series Reference Guide!”  

 

Willie Mays Photo Gallery
Click on any image below to view entire gallery:

 

 

A Tribute To The Great Willie Mays!

The superlatives seem to come easily in any discussion of Willie Mays and his phenomenal career. Few players have combined grace, popularity, and accomplishment like he did. Willie was a beautiful fielder with a great arm, possibly the greatest center fielder of all-time; a tremendous hitter who hit for both power and average; a smart base runner who stole over 300 bases; and a proven winner with four pennants and a World Series Championship on his resume. The “Say-Hey Kid” was unique, combining all of baseball’s key offensive and defensive skills into the “total package.”

Willie Mays hit 660 home runs, fourth all-time. His speed made him one of the few players with 300 steals and 500 home runs. His defensive skills won him 12 Gold Gloves. He would have had more, but the award wasn’t started until he was six years into his career. Over his 22 years in the majors (1951-1973), he hit .302 with 3,283 hits (11th all-time), 1903 RBI’s, .a 557 slugging percentage, a lifetime .384 on-base percentage, and 338 stolen bases. He and Hank Aaron are the only players to hit 600 home runs and collect 3,000 hits. Willie hit over 35 homers in 10 seasons, hit 40 homers six times, and won five slugging crowns. Mays is one of only five National League players to have had eight consecutive 100-RBI seasons. In addition he won four stolen base and three triples titles, six top-three finishes in National League batting races, and he played in a whopping 24 All-Star games (tied with Stan Musial and Hank Aaron for most ever). He won two MVP Awards, and was a two-time All-Star game MVP. His lifetime total of 7,095 outfield putouts remains the major league record.

On top of all that, he combined an infectious glee with a boyish enthusiasm that lifted the spirits of all around him. Cap-flying, wall crashing, legs churning, Mays ate up a baseball field whether covering ground in the outfield or dirt on the base paths. And the fans couldn’t get enough of him, making Mays one of the most beloved figures in the game. Willie was a popular figure in Harlem during his days in New York. Magazine photographers were fond of chronicling his participation in local stickball games with kids. It was said that in the urban game of hitting a rubber ball with an adapted broomstick handle, Mays could hit a shot that measured “six sewers” (the distance of six consecutive New York City manhole covers, nearly 300 feet).

Born in 1931 in Westfield, Alabama, Willie Howard Mays was so athletically advanced by age 14 he was competing with the men on his father’s steel mill team. He played semipro ball at age 16 and was on the Birmingham Black Barons by 1947. He was one of the last players – and likely the best – to come from the Negro Leagues. In 1950, the Giants signed him and sent him to the minors. In 1951 he was batting .477 with Minneapolis Millers in the American Association when he got the call to go up…thanks to Leo Durocher.

Durocher, the Giants’ manager at the time, demanded that Mays be promoted after the Giants started the ’51 season at 6-20. Probably Durocher’s most lasting contribution to baseball was acting as a mentor and father-figure to a frightened and home-sick Willie Mays. Leo had the foresight to stick with him after the rookie’s disastrous 0-23 start. One of baseball’s great images is when Leo found Mays sitting in front of his locker, sobbing. Willie said to Leo: “I don’t belong up here…I can’t play here…I can’t help you Mis-a-Leo, send me back to the minors” Leo just patted Mays on the back and simply said:

“Look son, I brought you up here to do one thing. That’s to play center field. You’re the best center fielder I’ve ever seen. As long as I’m here, you’re going to play center field. Tomorrow, next week, next month. As long as Durocher is manager of this team you will be on this club because you’re the best ball player I have ever seen.”

The rest, as they say, is history. On his 24th at bat, he hit a homer over the left field fence off Warren Spahn who later joked, “I’ll never forgive myself. We might have gotten rid of Willie forever if I’d only struck him out.” The Giants came from 13 ½ games back to force a playoff with the Dodgers, beating them on Bobby Thomson’s home run, the famous “Shot Heard Round the World.” Willie was in the on-deck circle at the time of the historic home run. Mays went on to hit hit 20 homers, played stellar center field, and won the Rookie of the Year Award. Durocher, with over 50 years in the game, later said, “What can I say about about Willie Mays after I say he’s the greatest player any of us has ever seen?”

Mays was in the Army during the Korean War for most of the 1952 and all of 1953. With those years, Willie almost certainly would have broken Babe Ruth’s lifetime home run record. Upon his return in 1954, all he did was lead the league with a .345 batting average and a .667 slugging percentage, hit 41 homers, and win the MVP Award, leading the Giants to the pennant and World Series championship. Of course then there’s “The Catch,” saving Game One of the 1954 World Series for the Giants. After a long run to the deepest part of the cavernous Polo Grounds – with his cap flyng off his head – he made an unbelievable over-the-shoulder catch over 420 feet from home, robbing Vic Wertz of at least a triple. It has become one of the most memorable plays in major league baseball history. Willie later said he made lots of other catches that were even better!

In 1962, he had one of his best seasons, again leading the Giants into another World Series, hitting 49 homers and driving in 141 runs. In 1965 he won his second MVP Award, batting .317 with 52 homers and 112 RBI. Mays finished among the top six in MVP voting an amazing 12 times.

Mays won a dozen Gold Gloves in a row from 1957 to 1968. Mickey Mantle said of Mays: “You have to work hard to be able to make things look as easy as Willie makes them look.” When Willie retired, he held all-time records for games, putouts, and chances for center fielders. He showed true greatness in his longevity. At age 40 he led the league in walks, hit 18 homers, and was 23-for-26 as a base stealer.

Willie Mays’ career statistics and longevity in the pre-PED era have led to a growing opinion that Mays was possibly the greatest all-around baseball player in the history of the game. In 1970, the Sporting News named Mays as the 1960s “Player of the Decade.” Mays placed second on The Sporting News’s “List of the 100 Greatest Baseball Players” in 1999. Later that year, he was also elected to the Major League Baseball All-Century Team. He was a near-unanimous selection to the Hall of Fame in 1979. His number 24 has been retired by the Giants.

-Gary Livacari

Photo Credits: The Walter Iooss, Jr. Collection; “The Greats of the Game;” Baseball Hall of Fame Collection; The George Brace Baseball Photos Collection, The Leslie Jones Collection, Public domain.

Biographical Information: Edited from “The Greats of the Game”; “Cooperstown: Baseball Hall of Fame Collection;” and the Willie Mays Wikipedia page. Read more at: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Willie_Mays

Subscribe to my blog for automatic updates and Free Bonus Reports: “Memorable World Series Moments” and “Gary’s Handy Dandy World Series Reference Guide.”