Celebrating the Greatness of Willie Mays

Yesterday, we all lost number 24, fittingly (albeit sadly) in the year 2024.  Now, the last all-time great who debuted in the Negro Leagues is gone.  Willie Mays will perpetually reside in “the green fields of the mind”– living on in the memories of all of us who were lucky enough to witness his transcendent play.

Today is the first day in the afterlife of wondrous Willie.  The timing of his passing is particularly poignant.  It is three weeks after Major League Baseball belatedly integrated Negro League baseball statistics into its official record, thereby adding 10 hits to Mays’ total.  Those hits occurred in 1948, when Willie began his major league career with the Birmingham Black Barons, who played in the last Negro League World Series that year, losing to the powerhouse Homestead Grays despite Willie’s 17-year-old presence. 

Today is also Juneteenth, a national holiday recognizing the declaration in Texas on June 19,1865 that due to the North’s winning of the Civil War, formerly enslaved Black people were now free.  And tomorrow, the annual Field of Dreams game will be played on Rickwood Field, where Mays debuted 76 years ago.

Today is not a day to do a deep dive into Willie’s career.  It is a day to celebrate the essence of Willie- an ebullient, dynamic, sparkling player who transformed professional baseball.  Until we saw Willie play center field, we had not seen a basket catch deployed so successfully and gracefully.  Nor did we see a catch so sublime that it could only be exceeded by a balletic throw– both made by Willie against the Cleveland Indians in the 1954 World Series.

My entry into the life of Willie Mays is through his teammate, roommate, and mentor Monte Irvin, whose biography I am currently writing.  When Irvin died in 2016, Willie could not make Monte’s memorial in New Jersey, but sent a heartfelt tribute to Irvin to be read at the event.  I tried to interview Willie about Monte several times in the last few years but never succeeded.  According to many accounts, Willie could be difficult to deal with. 

I want to remember Willie through the legendary plays he made, many of them during a remarkable thirteen-year stretch, from 1954 through 1966, when Mays was perpetually one of the top two or three players in all of baseball. Even though Willie was a shadow of his former self by 1972, when he joined the Mets, I got to see Willie play for my favorite team- and I will never forget it.

Yesterday there was no debate about who was the greatest living ballplayer.  Today, the debate begins anew.