Baseball great, Willie Mays, nicknamed, 'The Hey Say Kid', has passed away at the age of 93. He was a center fielder. He was well known for his time playing for the New York/San Francisco Giants. He arguably brought society together with his talent and achievements. He brought a divided city to unite. He oozed a singular combination of talent, drive and exuberance.
The center fielder was baseball’s oldest living Hall of Famer. His signature basket catch and his dashes around the bases with his cap flying off personified the joy of the game. His over-the shoulder catch of a long drive in the 1954 World Series is baseball’s most celebrated defensive feat.
Widely regarded as one of the greatest players of all-time, Mays was a five-tool player (a position player who has great skill in all the tools or basic skills: hitting for average, hitting for power, base running and speed, throwing, and fielding).
He began his career in the Negro leagues, playing for the Birmingham Black Barons and spent the rest of his career in the National League, playing for the New York / San Francisco Giants and New York Mets.
When a deal was struck in 1957 to move the Giants from New York to San Francisco, Willie Mays and his wife made a cash offer to build a new home for the team. Walter Gnesdiloff, the contractor who built the house, refused to take it.
Gnesdiloff claimed that his hands were tied. He said that his business would suffer if he sold this house to a Black man. The neighbours and the so-called “neighbourhood improvement clubs” had already besieged him with telephone calls. One neighbour said publicly that he “stand[s] to lose a lot if coloured people move in.”
Mayor George Christopher’s aides found them another home in a neighbourhood that a local social justice advocate said had “become heavily Negro in ownership.” Christopher, sensing a looming public relations disaster and trying to placate both sides, stepped in and convinced Gnesdiloff to sell his house to Mays for $37 500, which was $5 000 more than the price at which it had previously been offered to a white potential buyer.
In response, San Francisco chapter of the NAACP (The National Association for the Advancement of Coloured People) said, "What happened in Mays’ case is dramatically enacted daily by hapless Negro families whose lack of prominence does not command the attention of the press and officials of San Francisco."
He became a superstar in broad-shouldered New York City, amid a golden era of center fielders - Mays, Mickey Mantle and Duke Snider. They were all on three different baseball teams.
Just as the provincial forces of San Francisco distrusted these newcomers with their seemingly radical ideals, they also distrusted Mays at first. They already had a hero in Joe DiMaggio, the quiet and dignified New York Yankee who had come of age.
Mays brought a new kind of style with him to San Francisco and that style dovetailed with the newcomers. He wore his hat too loose so it would fly off when he ran. He was daring; graceful; powerful and beautiful.
On occasion, in the early years in San Francisco, the fans would boo Mays, often for doing something overly bold. In early 1959, when the Dodgers tried to walk him intentionally, he reached out and swung at the fourth pitch, popping it up to the catcher. One newspaper called it, “the boner of the year,” according to Mays’s biographer, James S. Hirsch. In June of that year, someone stuffed a racist note into a Coke bottle and hurled it through the picture window of his house on Miraloma Drive.
All this began to change in 1962, after the Giants defeated the Dodgers to win the pennant. "Mays considered himself, for the first time, a San Franciscan," Hirsch wrote. The next year, Mays agreed to give access to a young filmmaker named Lee Mendelson, whose one-hour documentary on him, A Man Named Mays, features a scene of a cross section of San Franciscans all listening to a Mays at-bat on the radio: a white woman getting her hair done, construction workers on break, men at a bar, teenagers lounging at the beach, a young child being bathed in a kitchen sink, restaurant workers labouring in a cramped Chinatown kitchen. The documentary aired on NBC in 1963, three weeks after the bombing of the 16th Street Baptist Church in Birmingham, the city where Mays had once played baseball.
Over 22 MLB seasons, virtually all with the New York/San Francisco Giants, Mays batted .302, hit 660 home runs, totaled 3,283 hits, scored more than 2,000 runs and won 12 Gold Gloves. He was Rookie of the Year in 1951, twice was named MVP and finished in the top 10 for the MVP 10 other times.
In Game 1 of the 1954 World Series, the then-New York Giants hosted the Cleveland Indians, who had won 111 games in the regular season and were strong favourites in the post season. The score was 2-2 in the top of the eighth innings. Cleveland’s Vic Wertz, faced reliever, Don Liddle, with none out, Larry Doby on second and Al Rosen on first.
With the count 1-2, Wertz smashed a fastball to deep center field. In an average park, with an average center fielder, Wertz would have homered or at least had an easy triple. However, the center field wall in the eccentrically shaped Polo Grounds was more than 450 feet away. There was nothing close to average about the skills of Willie Mays.
Decades of replays have not diminished the astonishment of watching Mays race toward the wall, his back to home plate; reach out his glove and haul in the drive. What followed was also extraordinary: Mays managed to turn around while still moving forward, heave the ball to the infield and prevent Doby from scoring even as Mays spun to the ground. Mays, himself, would proudly point out that “the throw” was as important as “the catch.”
On the moment, Mays said, "Soon as it got hit, I knew I’d catch the ball." Mays told this to biographer James S Hirsch, whose book came out in 2010. "All the time I’m running back, I’m thinking, ‘Willie, you’ve got to get this ball back to the infield.’"
He is living proof that anyone can overcome adversity. He set records and became an icon. This can involve both faith and hope. He can be an inspiration to everyone. This involves all facets of life; not just baseball/sports.
With all that he has done for the community and sport, I can only presume his name will be hard to forget. He is etched into everyone's memory. With the popularity of the sport in the U.S., it's a name that shalt not be forgotten. In this regard, he will join legends such as Babe Ruth and Joe DiMaggio.