I grew up hearing that Willie Mays (above at Cincinnati’s Crosley Field) was the greatest all-around player in the history of the game. And nothing I’ve seen since has convinced me differently. (Photo From the Ewing Collection)
Live and in person, I saw Willie Mays play just once, and he didn’t disappoint. Another of our iconic baseball personalities is now gone…and there’s no replacements in sight.
I watched a major league baseball game Thursday night – the Cardinals and the Giants from Rickwood Field, in Birmingham, Alabama.
I don’t watch much major league baseball. It’s too expensive, the atmosphere is too sterile, too congested, and I don’t particularly like seeing security personnel ring the field surveying the crowd between innings.
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You can’t get in early to watch both teams take batting practice anymore. And the highlight of the show – watching them take infield practice – well, the players union did away with that years ago. In other words, major league games aren’t as entertaining now, and they want to get them over with as quickly as possible. I’m sure they regret it when a game goes extra innings.
But Thursday’s game was different, and I digress. This was baseball nostalgia, a tribute to my friend Greg Hoard, who’s unmatched when it comes to writing about the innings of our youth.
And a tribute to the great players of the old Negro Leagues, and in particular…Willie Mays, who passed away earlier this week at the age of 93.
I’ll share for a moment that it was a maternal uncle, Armour Simpson, who first got me infected with baseball when I was eight years old. He would sit at his kitchen table and recite the box scores in the Ironton Tribune from the previous night’s games, usually with a commentary about the biggest stars and their heroics.
He knew baseball, and in the 60s he was quick to point out the greatness of Koufax and Drysdale…or Warren Spahn and Juan Marichal, who once hooked up in a 16-inning game in July of 1963. Pitch count be damned, as both pitchers went the distance before Marichal and the Giants ultimately won, 1-0, in four hours and ten minutes.
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“Oh, to see a game like that,” he would say. Cincinnati was the closest opportunity, but Uncle Armour knew that his old Rambler would never make it there and back. So, he just listened on the radio, and read about it in the Tribune.
The three players he talked about most were Duke Snider, Mickey Mantle, and Willie Mays…because they all played center field gloriously, and that position impressed him over all the other positions.
Snider had a hall of fame career with the Brooklyn and Los Angeles Dodgers before retiring from the New Mets in 1963. He hit 500 homers and he never looked like he was moving very fast. He was a tall, handsome guy, and just smooth. He made the game look easy.
Mantle was, well…just Mantle, the greatest combination of speed and power as a switch-hitter that Uncle Armour claimed he’d ever witnessed. He once hit a home run 564 off the upper deck facing of old Yankee Stadium.
And of course…Willie Mays, about whom he said that there was nothing that Mays couldn’t do on a baseball field – run, throw, catch, hit, and hit for power. He had all of the five tools of baseball.
“Just once you need to ask your dad to take you to see Mays play,” he would encourage. “He’s the greatest all-around player in the history of baseball.”
Of course I didn’t know Willie Mays from Willie Wonka, only what I had heard from my uncle, who talked about him like he was a baseball manifestation from Revelations, both the serpent and the beast carrying a Louisville Slugger!
I was twelve years old at the time. We had just moved to Piqua from Ironton in the summer of 1965, and suddenly Cincinnati wasn’t such a long trip, and Willie Mays and the San Francisco Giant were coming to town in August. I begged, and nagged enough…that Dad finally relented and took me to Crosley Field to see Willie Mays.
Sitting in an upper deck box seat that cost $1.75, I watched intently as Mays took batting practice before the game. He didn’t seem to swing that hard, but the ball shot off his bat like a meteorite. The first time you go to a major league game in a major league park it’s kinda’ hard to judge just how far the ball travels, but Mays hit them out to left, center and right and made it look easy.
“Don’t expect a lot of home runs,” my dad cautioned. “When the game starts the pitching is much tougher. It’s harder to hit one out.”
But sure enough, in the third inning, off Reds pitcher Joey Jay, Mays hooked a Jay curveball that didn’t curve…a high, majestic shot that cleared the netting above the 328 foot mark for a home run. I was mesmerized as I watched Mays trot the bases. He ran differently than the other players, and he didn’t look that fast. A couple of innings later he showed just how fast he was.
In his next at bat he lined ball to left center that Reds outfielder Vada Pinson narrowly missed catching before it crashed against the scoreboard. Mays was already at first base when he saw the ball ricochet away from Pinson…and he turned on the jets, flying around second base and beating the throw easily to third base with a beautiful hook slide.
Mays, of course, was a legendary fielder for his ability to get to any ball between left center to right center. And Crosley Field was tougher to play than most big league parks because of its terraced outfield that many opposing outfielders struggled to navigate.
But late in the game the Reds ‘Art Shamsky pinch-hit and lifted a high fly ball to right center that Mays not only ran down halfway up the terrace…but he caught it with the palm of his glove up, basket-style, like it was a bride’s bouquet.
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The Giants won that game, and in one night I had seen the essence of Willie Mays – power, speed, defense, and showmanship. I never got to see him play again, but it didn’t matter. I had gotten to see him at the height of his career and talent. I had seen what Uncle Armour had accurately described…the greatest player of all time.
The same 1958 Topps card as Snider and Mantle…when the three of them were at the zenith of their big league careers.
Years later my friend and Reds beat writer Greg Hoard told me a story about asking Mays for an autograph after a game at Crosley, and offered Mays his Uncle Bob’s gold Cross pen to sign his name. Mays signed, alright, for everyone but Hoard, and when he was done he stuck Uncle Bob’s pen in his coat pocket, climbed into a cab, and left. They never got the pen back.
Ironically, when Terry Cashman recorded the song Willie, Mickey, and “The Duke” (Talkin’ Baseball) in 1981, the first thing I thought of was Armour Simpson and his daily performance of the previous night’s box score. I like nostalgia, you see, and that song became a poignant reminder of those wonderful days of my youth, talkin’ baseball, and who’s the best – Willie, Mickey, or ‘The Duke’.
It still is.
I looked it up on You Tube prior to writing this, played it several times, and remembered that night in 1965…the only time I saw Willie Mays play.
The best of all time!