Mays was truly a player before his time, and the numbers we value in today’s game would only have enhanced his all-time place.
Maybe the greatest baseball player of all time is Babe Ruth. Perhaps it’s Henry Aaron or Barry Bonds or Josh Gibson or Oscar Charleston. Proponents of a more antiquated version of the sport might argue for Ty Cobb or Honus Wagner. For a time, before injuries wrecked their careers and their potential stamp on ultimate greatness, it could have been Ken Griffey Jr. or Mike Trout or Mickey Mantle, for that matter. Maybe if Ted Williams doesn’t miss five seasons while serving in wars, he towers over the sport as the greatest hitter who ever lived.
You can, however, punch holes in the cases for any of those guys. Small holes — maybe they didn’t play center field, maybe they couldn’t throw, maybe their peak lasted only a few seasons — but still holes. You can’t find any holes for Willie Mays.
“There have been only two authentic geniuses in the world”, actress Tallulah Bankhead once said. “Willie Mays and Willie Shakespeare.”
Williams himself once said, “They invented the All-Star Game for Willie Mays.”
Mays appeared in 24 of them.
Writer Joe Posnanski once came up with an idea called “The Willie Mays Hall of Fame”, because fans would complain that the standards for selection to Cooperstown were too low. It was a joke, of course. As Joe wrote, if Mays were the standard for the Hall of Fame, it would have only one member.
Mays could run.
How great was Mays on the basepaths? In 1971, he tied for the National League lead in a category called baserunning runs. He was 40 years old.
Mays could field.
Maybe his famous catch in the 1954 World Series wasn’t the greatest catch of all time. Mays himself said he made better plays. But it’s the catch everyone still talks about as the greatest ever — 70 years later it remains unsurpassed, a mythological play with video proof that he was worthy of each of his 12 Gold Gloves.
Mays could throw.
“[Mays] scooped the ball up at the base of the 406-foot sign, whirled and fired. It came in on one bounce, directly in front of the plate, and into the glove of catcher Tom Haller, who put it on the astonished Willie Stargell. It was described by old-timers as the greatest throw ever made in ancient Forbes Field”, Bob Stevens wrote of a 1965 game.
Mays could hit.
A lifetime average of .301, with many of his prime years coming in the pitching-dominant 1960s, when mounds were as high as Mount Everest and pitchers like Don Drysdale and Bob Gibson would buzz you with a fastball if he didn’t like the way you looked at them. Ten seasons with a .300 average and nearly 3,300 career hits. “As a batter, his only weakness is a wild pitch”, Bill Rigney, one of his managers, once quipped.
Mays could hit for a power.
He wasn’t a big man, listed at 5-foot-10 and 170 pounds, but he was all sinewy muscle with huge hands that gripped the bat like a toothpick. He finished with 660 home runs — and, if not for missing nearly two full seasons while serving in the Army, might have broken Ruth’s home run record before Aaron did. He led his league four times in home runs.
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The difficult case of Oscar Charleston »
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Two years ago, ESPN ranked Mays the second-greatest player of all time behind Ruth.
