Willie Mays: The Greatest to Ever Play the Game of Baseball

One of the many blessings that I have had in my lifetime is getting to watch Willie Mays play baseball. When it comes to greatness in a sport that an athlete specializes in, you have Michael Jordan in basketball, Wayne Gretzky in hockey, Joe Montana in football and Willie in baseball.

Willie could do it all. As his manager Leo Durocher said, he could hit, hit for power, run, throw, and field. He was elected to the Baseball Hall of Fame in 1979.

Some say that the "Say Hey Kid" would of had better statistics if he had retired a few years earlier. I for one am glad that he didn't. He gave others a chance to see him in person by hanging on a few more years. Players like Mays comes along once in a generation. To this day, I tell young people who never got to see him play, how great he really was. Unless you were able to see him in his prime, you couldn't appreciate how good he was for the game of baseball.

Many of his stats have been over shadowed by other players in recent years. Several have hit more homers than he has. Many have a higher batting average or more stolen bases. Some even have a better fielding percentage. However, no matter what category you look at, his name always appears in the upper levels of those statistics.

Like other players from his time, he missed a couple of years because of military service. He was in the Korean War. If he wouldn't have missed those two years, he may have had more home runs than the 755 that Hank Aaron had. Mays had 660. He was part of the first all black outfield in 1951 with Hank Thompson and Monte Irvin.

When he came back his first year after his stint in the service, he hit .345 and was voted the Most Valuable Player in the National League.

At the time of his induction into the Hall of Fame, he was asked, "Who was the greatest player you ever saw?" He said, "Not to be bashful, but I was." Looking at his stats, that would be hard to deny. So let's take a quick look at his stats. He appeared in 21 All Star games. He was Rookie of the Year in 1951. He won 12 Gold Gloves. He was MVP twice. He won the Roberto Clemente Award in 1971. He was a 94.7 % first Ballot selection to the Hall of Fame. He had a lifetime average of .302, 660 Home runs, 3,283 hits, 1,903 RBI's, 338 Stolen bases, 523 doubles, 140 triples, 6,066 total bases, and a .557 Slugging percentage.

Despite all his statistics, he was just a joy to watch. On balls that he could get to, he would always use a basket catch to catch the ball. It was not that he was showing off, it was just the way he did it. One of his most memorial catches came in the 1954 World Series. On the dead run, he caught a ball with his back to home plate in straight away center, on a long ball hit by Vic Wertz. A picture and film of the catch is often shown to this day.

When any baseball enthusiast starts to talk about the greats of the game, it is hard not to consider Mays. He played for only two teams the Giants and the Mets. He finished his last years with the Mets because he wanted to finish his career where he started , New York city. Mays number 24 was retired by the San Francisco Giants. In 2007, he was inducted into the California Hall of Fame.

As I said at the beginning of this article. I have been blessed to see one of the four greatest athletes in professional sports. Willie Mays is one of them.

Source:

http://sports.espn.go.com/mlb/players/profile?playerId=24790