Exit Willie Mays
Widely acknowledged as the most complete ballplayer of all time, Mays is dead at 93.
The San Francisco Giants have announced that Willie Mays, a member of the Baseball Hall of Fame and perhaps the most complete ballplayer ever, has died at the age of 93.
I don’t know what someone like me, who only saw Mays play at the very end of his career in New York, could possibly add to what’s already been written about him. He played an incredible 23 seasons in professional baseball and for decades has been known as its greatest living ballplayer. And from the the first moment he stepped onto the field as a teenager he got a front row seat watching and making baseball history.
In 1948 at the age of just 17, he helped the Birmingham Black Barons to the championship of the Negro American League. After struggling early in his rookie season in Major League Baseball with the New York Giants in 1951 — Mays famously despaired of being able to stick with the Giants — he was a key player during a stretch drive where the team finished the season with a 50-12 run that helped them tie the Brooklyn Dodgers for first place in the National League (NL).
The Giants won the pennant in a three-game playoff with Brooklyn that ended with Bobby Thompson’s walkoff home run, known colloquially as the “Shot Heard ‘Round The World.” Mays was in the on deck circle when Thompson hit the home run, and capped off that first season by playing in the World Series against the New York Yankees and winning the NL Rookie of the Year Award.
Mays spent the rest of his career establishing his reputation as the greatest five-tool player the game had ever seen. After losing almost two seasons to military service, Mays returned in 1954, winning the NL batting title and Most Valuable Player award. He led the Giants to victory in the World Series, sweeping the heavily favored Cleveland Indians in four games while providing the signature moment of his career.
Mays moved with the Giants when they relocated to San Francisco after the 1957 season, becoming a fan favorite and helping to establish the team in the Bay Area. He played more than 14 seasons in San Francisco, leading the league in home runs three times and helping the Giants back to the World Series against the Yankees in 1962.
Throughout the late 1960s, Mays aged gracefully. Perhaps the power wasn’t there as consistently, but the outfield play was still excellent and the All-Star Game appearances kept piling up. And as he aged, his eye at the plate got better and better. If you look at the arc of his career, it’s impossible not to be impressed with his age 40 season in 1971, one where San Francisco won the NL West Division title. Mays might have only hit 18 home runs, but he drew 112 walks and posted an on-base percentage of .425, leading the league in both categories and earning another All-Star appearance.
By 1972, the wily veteran was running out of tricks on the field and his time with the Giants was clearly coming to an end. It was then that Joan Whitney Payson, a former part-owner of the Giants who had voted against moving the team to San Francisco in 1957 and now owner of the expansion New York Mets, pulled off a deal to bring Mays back to New York to finish his career. His home run in a Mets uniform came against the Giants at Shea Stadium, where Willie proved he still had a flair for the dramatic.
Willie wound up his career in 1973 as a part-time player with the Mets, splitting time in centerfield with the light-hitting Don Hahn. The rapid decline of his skills was impossible to ignore at this point, though Mays had one more role to play before the curtain fell on his Hall of Fame career: steady veteran presence on a team in a pennant race. Beset by injuries for most of the season, the Mets struggled, but caught fire in September to win the NL East by just 1.5 games. They took down the defending NL champs, the Cincinnati Reds, in five games in the NL Championship Series. The underdog Mets extended the defending World Series champion Oakland A’s to seven games before losing the deciding Game Seven in Oakland on a Sunday afternoon.
It was fitting that Mays ended his Major League career playing in the Bay Area for a team from New York. And when Willie was introduced before Game One of the World Series in Oakland, the locals made sure to give him one last, long and loving ovation.
I always thought that retirement was tough on Mays. Near the end of his career, he often said how disappointed he was that he couldn’t play the game at the level he had earlier in his career, something he expressed repeatedly in his pre-game speech on Willie Mays night at Shea Stadium on September 25, 1973. After paying tribute to his teammates who were fighting for a pennant, Mays ended his remarks and said: “Willie, say goodbye to America.” It was hard not to feel haunted by his words.
But while Mays thought it was time to say goodbye to America, America’s baseball fans never wanted to say goodbye to Willie. Given that he was a hero on both the East Coast and the West Coast, we shouldn’t have been surprised. While Mays played 23 seasons, he lived for almost 51 years after he retired. All the while, his legend only grew, as throngs of fans at Old Timer’s Games and baseball card shows would salute him over and over again. In a statement issued today by Michael Mays, Willie’s only child, he mentioned how the love of the fans often sustained his father.
I’m glad he got to keep hearing those cheers long after his career had ended. He deserved it. And I feel grateful that even though it was at the end of his career, that I was one of the lucky baseball fans who got to cheer for Willie Mays.