Paying Tribute to Willie Mays (dead at 93) #mlb #heroes #SFGiants

Tonight, baseball legend Willie Mays, who played most his career with first the New York Giants, then the San Francisco Giants after they moved coasts, has died at age 93.

Mays was a true original and one of the greatest men to ever play any variety of major league baseball. (I don’t know if everyone knows this, but many of the Negro Leagues now have major league status. It’s long overdue.) He played in the Negro Leagues for a little while, then played for the Giants for the vast majority of his career. Despite needing to take a few years out for military service in the United States Army, Mays amassed an impressive career.

Mays had 660 home runs, 3293 hits, a .301 batting average, 1909 runs batted in, 339 stolen bases, and 2068 runs scored. (Stats were pulled up via baseball-reference.com.) He also was a tremendously gifted center fielder, partly because he had such speed and partly because he had a very strong arm, winning twelve Gold Gloves for his defensive excellence.

The Encyclopedia Brittanica has a few pages about Willie Mays, saying that many people recognize Mays as the greatest all-around player in the history of Major League Baseball. The Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown, NY, also has a page recognizing the greatness of Mays’s career. Mays was also given the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 2015 for his contributions to the United States as a whole and major league baseball in particular.

So, many people knew him and many people admired him. For example, my late husband Michael told me he’d met Mays, along with several other Giants greats over the years, because the Giants were one of the first teams to be known for their philanthropic efforts. Mays was a “special ambassador” for the Giants from 1986 to his death, and was well known in San Francisco due to his sunny and exuberant personality as well as his various duties with the Giants over the years, and I assume that’s how and why Michael would’ve met Mays. (He also met Barry Bonds, and said Bonds was far more gracious in person than Bonds had ever been given credit for. YMMV, of course.)

I never met Willie Mays, but I admired him. He was a brilliant player, a kind-hearted man by all accounts, loved baseball, and loved his life. He gave of his time often, especially if it would help children in any way, with much of that philanthropy being done quietly and with no fanfare. Mays was one of the first African-American superstar players to enter MLB after the pioneering efforts of Jackie Robinson (NL and MLB-wide) and Larry Doby (AL), and he always conducted himself with grace and class.

In short, Willie Mays was my type of guy. I mourn his death but am grateful for his well-lived life and for everything he accomplished in baseball.