Marcus Hayes: Willie Mays was the greatest baseball player ever, and there is no honest debate about it

PHILADELPHIA — “There have only been two authentic geniuses in the world: Willie Mays and Willie Shakespeare.” — Star actress Tallulah Bankhead.

Debate is fun and debate is good, and sports supplies us with plenty of healthy, robust debate. Which basketball player was best — Wilt, Jordan, LeBron? Which quarterback was best — Brady, Montana, maybe Rodgers? Which running back: Jim Brown, Walter Payton, Barry Sanders?

There is no debate about the best baseball player ever. No honest debate, at least. The most potent power hitter of his generation, he also was the best and is the owner of the most famous defensive play in history, “The Catch.”

Case closed.

Willie Howard Mays Jr. died Tuesday at the age of 93. He was the greatest of the 20,652 major league ballplayers in history. He ran, he caught, he threw, he hit for average, and he hit for power. But there was more.

The “Say Hey Kid” played with joy and with verve, and with more talent than any player before him or after. He served as baseball’s West Coast ambassador in the 1960s and baseball’s most elegant ambassador after he retired in 1973. In baseball’s Golden Era, he was king; better than Mickey Mantle, better than Hammerin’ Hank Aaron, better than Stan “The Man” Musial, better than “Teddy Ballgame” Williams.

Like me, Bryce Harper and Dave Dombrowski only really met him once, but the impression was like meeting royalty.

“One of the greatest players of all time,” Harper said after the Phillies’ come-from-behind, walk-off win Tuesday night — a game the “Say Hey Kid” would have loved. “Sad for the sport, obviously, and condolences to him and his family. It’s going to be a big miss for Major League Baseball. I had the opportunity to meet him and shake his hand. What an incredible career he had, overcoming a lot of stuff. Just the impact he had on the game, he’s definitely going to be missed.”

Harper, 31, was born 20 years too late to see Mays play live. Not so for Dombrowski, who is 67. He was 4 when Mays led the majors with 190 hits, 5 when he led the National League with 129 runs, and was 6 and 9 when Mays led the majors in homers, with 49 and 52, respectively. From the year before Dombrowski’s birth until he was 3, Mays led all of baseball with 136 stolen bases; surely, Dombrowski heard the tales of Mays’ speed, the way he witnessed his talent and grace.

“I really did not know Willie, just shook his hand once,” Dombrowski wrote in a text last night. “However, there is no question he was one of the greatest players in the history of the game. Anybody that I have known that knew him, loved and respected him for not only how great a player he was, but, for being a great individual. He was a true legend.”

...continued

swipe to next page