Rest in Peace, Willie Mays
The baseball world lost one of its greatest figures today
Greatness is something that you usually can’t measure. You just see it and know it. Willie Mays personified that.
Mays had 660 home runs, 3,293 hits, and some of the most spectacular fielding ever seen. Over his 22 years playing, Mays won Rookie of the Year, two Most Valuable Players, 12 Gold Gloves, a batting title and the 1954 World Series.
Looking at Baseball-Reference WAR, he ranks fifth all-time with 156.2. Only his godson Barry Bonds (162.8 bWAR) and Babe Ruth (182.6 bWAR) accumulated more as position players.
Mays started his career in the Negro Leagues with the Birmingham Black Barons (and ironically, his death was announced to the crowd at the Black Barons’ Rickwood Field as White Sox Double-A affiliate Birmingham hosted the Montgomery Biscuits there). In 1950, the New York Giants signed him out of high school, and he soon blossomed into a legend. After missing most of the 1952 season and all of 1953 with military service, Mays returned in 1954. That same year he won his first MVP, and in that year’s World Series, Mays made a stunning running play that we just call “The Catch.”
Mays also led the Giants back to the World Series in 1962, by which point when the team had moved west to San Francisco. They would lose to the New York Yankees in seven games.
The superstar stayed in San Francisco until the team traded him back to New York City and the Mets, a spiritual successor to the Giants, in the middle of the 1972 season. Mays once again reached the World Series, this time as a reserve, losing to the Oakland Athletics in seven games.
Mays’ jersey has been retired by both the Giants and Mets, making him the 14th person in the history of MLB to receive such an honor. The Giants are also playing a game at Rickwood Field on June 20, that was meant to honor Mays as the greatest living player (Rickwood Field is where the Birmingham Black Barons played most of their games, including plenty of ones featuring hometown star Mays). It is sad to lose Mays just days before this event, but at least he’ll have the best seats in the house.