Some athletes are superhuman in the eyes of fans. For me, Jeff Bagwell was a monstrous man, one who I could never dream of becoming, one who seemingly never struck out or got hurt, one who's homers were moon shots. For an entire generation of Americans watching baseball many, many years before I was even born, that man was Willie Mays. One of my earliest baseball memories was sitting at my first ever Astros game against the Padres in the old Dome, watching Bagwell hit. I remember him blasting a round tripper, but that could have just been my childhood imagination. Maybe he flied out. Either way, I remember being aghast at just how far he could hit that tiny ball with that skinny bat. My father looked at me and said, "He's nothing close to Mays". A lot of stories in our house revolved around Willie. My father grew up a Giants fan, even though he lived in Las Vegas, purely because of the Say Hey Kid. To this day, he contends that Mays was the best baseball player he ever saw, Albert Pujols be darned.
That claim may not be too far from the truth. Not only was Willie a first ballot Hall of Famer, a member of the 3,000 hits and 600 HR club (numbers that would have been much larger had he not missed two seasons while serving in the Military), but he was also (sorta) statistically proven to be the best center fielder of his era, one that included the likes of Mickey Mantle and Duke Snider. He was named the 4th best player of all time, according to The Sporting News' Top 200 Baseball Players. My humble opinion: he's second only to Babe Ruth. Mays was also consistently known as one of the best men in baseball, a humble guy who didn't like the spotlight and felt at home when he was patrolling center or relaxing with this family. He didn't mind joining in on a game of stickball with kids in the street, either.
The anecdote that sums up Mays best is this:
History, or maybe legend, has it that former U.S. President Richard Nixon was at a Giants-Dodgers game while on a visit to California in 1969. He was sitting in his own box, of course, when his security detail decided that it was probably time for the President to head to bed. After suggesting that they leave, Nixon agreed and started to get up. He turned back to the game and said, "Wait, let me see Mays bat". After Mays popped out, Nixon then put on his suit coat and quietly left the stadium with his guards.
That's the kind of athlete, and man, that Willie Mays was. As Tallulah Bankhead so aptly put it, "There have only been two geniuses in the world, Willie Mays and Willie Shakespeare". A very happy birthday to you, Mr. Mays.
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