Willie Mays, widely regarded as the best all-around player the game has seen and the man behind one of the most famous defensive plays in sports history, passed away Tuesday. Mays was 93.
The Giants announced Mays' death in a statement on behalf of his family, just one day after it was revealed the MLB legend would not be traveling to Birmingham, Ala., this week for San Francisco's game at Rickwood Field.
“My father has passed away peacefully and among loved ones,” Michael Mays said, via the Giants. “I want to thank you all from the bottom of my broken heart for the unwavering love you have shown him over the years. You have been his life’s blood.”
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Known as "The Say Hey Kid," Mays was a 24-time MLB All-Star and two-time NL MVP who was inducted into the Hall of Fame in 1979. He retired with an unparalleled resume, one that has easily stood the test of time. Mays still ranks sixth all-time in homers (660), seventh in runs (2,062) and 12th in hits (3,283) and RBI (1,903). He is one of three men in MLB history with at least 500 homers and 300 stolen bases, and, along with Roberto Clemente, holds the record for most Gold Glove Awards (12) won by an outfielder.
"If somebody came up and hit .450, stole 100 bases and performed a miracle in the field every day, I'd still look you in the eye and say Willie was better," his first manager, Leo Durocher, once said.
Born in Alabama in 1931, Mays was a three-sport star in high school who played for the Birmingham Black Barons in the Negro leagues before signing with the New York Giants in 1950. Just a year later, he was the National League Rookie of the Year after hitting .274 with 20 homers. After missing a full season and part of a second one to serve in the Army during the Korean War, Mays returned to MLB in 1954 and immediately took the mantle as the National League's best player.
San Francisco Giants
Mays hit .345, winning his lone batting title, with 41 homers, 13 triples, 119 runs and 110 RBI. At 23 years old, he was an easy choice for the NL MVP Award and made the first of 19 consecutive All-Star teams. The Giants swept the Indians in the World Series, which is best known for "The Catch," one of the most famous defensive plays in sports history.
In the eighth inning of Game 1 at the Polo Grounds, Cleveland's Vic Wertz hit a deep fly ball to center that looked like a sure bet to untie a 2-2 game. Mays tracked it down an estimated 450 feet from the plate and made a stunning over-the-shoulder catch before turning and firing the ball back to the infield to hold the runners. The Giants won the game in extra innings.
In "24," a biography written by Mays and John Shea that was released in 2020, Mays wrote that The Throw was just as important as The Catch. He said he never had any doubt he would catch the ball as it left Wertz's bat.
"The ball was hit, and I ran toward the ball knowing I'm making the catch and thinking about how I'd get the ball back," Mays wrote. "I stopped in front of the wall and made a very quick U-turn. It was simple to me. You go back, you catch the ball, you spin, you turn, you throw it back to the infield. I don't like to exaggerate, but I was young and cocky enough to know I could catch any ball in the park. But the important thing was for the runners to stay on the bases."
Mays' glove and arm in center field separate him from others in the Greatest of All Time conversation, and his ability on the bases made him a true five-tool superstar. Mays led the big leagues in stolen bases four times, matching the number of times he led in homers.
His career-high in homers came in 1965, when he hit 52 and won his second MVP Award. Mays finished in the top 10 in MVP voting a dozen times and was in the top five nine times in 22 big league seasons. He spent 21 of those seasons with the Giants and finished his career with 135 games with the New York Mets.
Mays returned to the Giants as a special assistant in 1986, and in 1993 the club announced that Mays had signed a lifetime contract to be part of the front office. Oracle Park went up seven years later at 24 Willie Mays Plaza, with a statue of Mays placed right in front of the main entrance, becoming one of the most popular tourist stops in the city.
Mays was at the ballpark in 2007 as his godson, Barry Bonds, set the all-time home run mark. In 2015, he was given the Presidential Medal of Freedom by President Barack Obama, who said, "It's because of giants like Willie that someone like me could even think about running for president."
In his later years, Mays was a regular at Oracle Park, visiting with players before games while sitting in Mike Murphy's office in the home clubhouse. He would fly out to Scottsdale every spring, setting up at a table in the clubhouse as current Giants nervously approached for an autograph or a quick conversation. It wasn't unusual to see Mays stand up and compare forearm sizes with Giants stars. Decades removed from his last at-bat, Mays almost always won.