Born to play baseball

He was born May 6, 1931 in the tiny coal mining town of Westfield, Alabama. His journey in life led him to greatness, something no one would have imagined in their wildest dreams 93 years ago.

(After hearing the news Tuesday evening of the passing of an American treasure, I felt compelled to put a couple of other items I had planned for this missive on hold and pay tribute to not only a tremendous athlete, but also a great individual.)

Willie Howard Mays Jr. showed at an early age the immense potential of his amazing baseball talent while still in high school. An all-around tremendous athlete, the 17-year-old joined the Birmingham Black Barons of the Negro American League following a brief stint with the Chattanooga Choo-Choos, a Negro minor league team. His high school principal, E.T. Oliver, threatened to suspend Mays for playing professional baseball, but Willie’s father, “Cat” Mays and the owner of the Black Barons, Piper Davis, worked out an agreement, allowing him to play only home games, so he could still play high school football and basketball.

Mays had an immediate impact, helping Birmingham advance to the 1948 Negro World Series, where they fell 4-1 to the Homestead Grays. The teenager hit .262 and dazzled with his fielding and base running skills.

After drawing the attention of several major league teams, he was signed to a $4,000 contract by the New York Giants upon his graduation in 1950. During the rest of the summer, he played for the Class B Trenton Giants of the Interstate League, batting .353. Promoted to the Triple-A Minneapolis Millers in 1951, Mays hit an incredible .477 in 35 games, which earned him a call-up to the Giants on May 24, 1951.

What followed was one of the most memorable rookie seasons in baseball history. After Mays got off to a slow start, he went on to hit .274 with 20 home runs and 68 RBI in 121 games. Those numbers would rank among the lowest totals of his career, but Mays earned the

respect of the baseball world with his aggressive style of play at the age of 20. The Giants appeared to be dead in the water when they trailed the Brooklyn Dodgers by 13 ½ games on August 11, but with Mays leading the way by making key defensive plays with his strong throwing arm, they went 40-18, winning their last seven of the year to tie Brooklyn for the regular season National League title.

The Giants won the three-game NL tie-breaker series 2-1 on October 3 when Bobby Thomson hit a three-run homer, which became known as the “shot heard ‘round the world” in game 3. Mays was in the on-deck circle when Thomson’s blast lifted the Giants to the improbable win, and sent the underdogs to the 1951 World Series, where they fell to the mighty New York Yankees, led by immortals Joe DiMaggio (Mays’s boyhood favorite) and rookie Mickey Mantle four games to two.

Soon after, Mays was drafted by the United States Army to serve in the Korean War, and played just 34 games in 1952, and missed the entire 1953 season. He missed about 266 games because of his time serving the country, before returning to the Giants in 1954. That season would be one for the record books.

Mays not only earned Most Valuable Player honors, but he also won the batting title, hitting .345, with 13 triples, 41 home runs and 110 RBI while leading the Giants to the world championship.

New York swept the Cleveland Indians in the 1954 World Series, which is best remembered for “The Catch.” The seemingly impossible occurred in the eighth inning of Game 1 of the Fall Classic and prevented a pair of Tribe base runners from scoring. Mays ventured back to the deepest part of the Polo Grounds, running full speed toward the fence with his back to the infield. He grabbed the deep fly ball off the bat of Vic Wertz over his shoulder approximately 425 feet from home plate, before whirling and firing the ball back to the infield to prevent the runners from advancing.

Later, Mays said, “I’ve made better catches than that many times in the regular season, but of course in my time, you didn’t have a lot of

television during the regular season. A lot of people didn’t see me do a lot of things.”

That’s a true and profound statement when you think about it. “The Catch” is preserved forever in all its black-and-white glory, but in that era, unless you were at the ball park, you were not able to see and appreciate Willie’s brilliance on the diamond.

I could ramble on and on and on about Willie’s amazing accomplishments, impressive statistics, and numerous awards he earned during his mythical career, but he was much more than mere numbers. Think for a moment how much more impressive those numbers would’ve been if not for missing nearly two full seasons in his prime while serving his country and playing so many games in windy Candlestick Park in San Francisco for much of his career.

Willie Mays is an American icon; he played the game he loved with pure joy, all-out determination, and flair. He was a showman, but he was not a showoff. He made the spectacular look routine, running into the gaps and near the fence to make catches no one else could dream of making. His combination of speed and power was unmatched for nearly two decades, and just consider all of the countless the Hall of Famers that Mays played with and against during his magnificent career.

The “Say Hey Kid” made baseball appear to be much easier than it is; he once said he could make the easy plays look hard, and the hard plays look easy. His incredible talent and athleticism, where he excelled in all five tools of baseball, was exceeded only by his knowledge and feel for the game. Mays had natural baseball instincts, and that, in addition to his powerful throwing arm, speed on the base paths, and the ability to hit for average and power, made him the greatest all-around baseball player to ever put on a uniform.

Willie Mays was also a leader and an innovator on the field and he had the utmost respect of both his teammates and opponents. There will never be another like him.

*****

A FEW MORE WORDS ON WILLIE – Just a quick personal note on the late, great Mr. Mays:

I realize I’m showing my age again, but I was lucky enough to get up close and personal to the Hall of Famer in the mid-1960s. I’ll never forget the day at Crosley Field when Willie came running through the tunnel to and a large group of kids were clamoring for an autograph from the Giants players as they were making their way to the field.

Well, I didn’t get the autograph, but I do remember Willie smiling and saying, “I got to go to work” as he headed onto the lush green grass of Crosley. He later remarked that he never worked a day in his life, because of his love for baseball.

Another factoid concerning Willie Mays:

While finishing his career as a member of the New York Mets, Mays hit his final (660th) home run on August 17, 1973 against a Kentuckian. The blast to right-center field in the fourth inning at Shea Stadium came against Cincinnati Reds lefthander Don Gullett. Some of you longtime Reds fans may recall the Reds won that game 2-1 on a pinch-hit home run from Hal King in the 10th inning.

The two teams would go on to square off in the 1973 NLCS, where the Mets prevailed three games to two, ending a 99-63 season for the Big Red Machine. New York advanced to the World Series and lost to the Oakland Athletics in seven games.

*****

Three quotes from Willie Mays:

“They throw the ball, I hit it. They hit the ball, I catch it.”

“In order to excel, you must be completely dedicated to your chosen sport. You must also be prepared to work hard and be willing to accept constructive criticism. Without one-hundred percent dedication, you won’t be able to do this.” “Maybe I was born to play ball. Maybe I truly was.”

Yes, Willie Howard Mays Jr., you were truly born to play ball.