My dad was born and raised in New York City.
Brooklyn, in fact, although he was not a fan of the Brooklyn Dodgers. There were three teams in NYC in those days, and he was a fan of the team that played in the northern part of Manhattan — the New York Giants.
I don’t really recall who his favorite players were as a child, although I remember him talking about Mel Ott, who was a big leaguer at 17, retired as the all-time home run king of the National League and died as a result of an auto accident before he was 50 years old.
He was a great player, but long before the 1950s were over, very few people were calling him the Greatest Giant.
That honor belonged then and still belongs today to Willie Mays, who died Tuesday at the age of 93.
In fact, you wouldn’t necessarily be wrong to do what writer Joe Posnarski did in his book “The Baseball 100” and rate Mays ahead of Babe Ruth as the greatest ballplayer ever.
Mays was the player my dad loved above all others.
Queen Elizabeth, President Ford and Willie Mays
No one did everything as well as Mays. He hit for average, he hit for power, he could run and field and throw. Those are the five tools by which scouts rate would-be ballplayers and Mays would be at or near the top of the list in all five.
He was the first player ever to collect both 3,000 hits and 500 home runs. In fact, when he retired at age 42 after the 1973 season, his 660 home runs were third only to Babe Ruth’s 714 and Hank Aaron’s 713. If you consider than he missed all but 34 games of the 1952 and ’53 seasons serving in the Army, it’s very likely he would have retired with more homers than the Bambino.
If there is one moment for which Mays is best remembered, it’s his catch in the 1954 World Series.
Mays certainly had other great moments. In 1963, the Giants and Milwaukee Braves hooked up in what is considered the greatest pitched game ever. Juan Marichal and the Braves’ Warren Spahn matched zeroes for 15 innings before the Gants won 1-0 in the 16th on a Mays home run.
Throughout much of his career, Mays was linked with Mickey Mantle. Both men came to the big leagues in 1951 and were two of the very best players of the decade. Mantle was more popular, because back then Americans would always regard the player who was white at least a little more highly.
Mantle was undeniably great, maybe as good as the second best player of his time, but he was no Mays.
I only saw Mays in person twice, at a 1958 doubleheader in Cincinnati that I can barely remember and at the 1969 All-Star Game at Washington’s RFK Stadium.
Thankfully, his entire career took place in the television era, so I was fortunate enough to see most of it.
He wasn’t just great.
He was the greatest.
Rest in peace, Willie Mays.