The Greatest of All Time, 1931-2024

There are some topics too monumental for words. Subjects that our adjectives, sentences, and metaphors are not worthy of touching.

Willie Mays is one of those rare topics. A player, a person, and a presence who was simply too large, too magical, and too special to confine with words.

I’ve said a version of that sentence many times before. I’ve written a version of that sentence many times before. I’ve thought a version of that sentence many times before.

But this is the first time that the sentence has been said in the past tense. Because on Tuesday night, as the world went on as planned and the San Francisco Giants quietly played their 74th baseball game of the year, the team announced that Mays had died peacefully at the age of 93.

The Say Hey Kid. The Giant of all Giants.

The greatest baseball player of all time.

Mays’ story is well known by nearly all who have ever gazed romantically at a baseball. He began his career in the Negro American League while still in high school, playing for the Birmingham Black Barons at Rickwood Field, where the Giants will play in just two days. Upon Mays’ graduation, the New York Giants signed him for all of $4,000, and in 1951 he made his Major League debut. He spent more than two decades with the Giants, which included missing the 1953 season after being drafted by the Army to serve in the Korean War, and coming to the Bay Area when the Giants moved to San Francisco in 1958. He stayed with the Giants until the 1972 season, when San Francisco traded him back to the Big Apple — he would finish the year and then the 1973 season with the New York Mets, before calling it a career.

A 24-time All-Star. A two-time MVP. A 12-time Gold Glove winner. A world champion.

The greatest baseball player of all time.

Mays returned to the Giants in 1986 as a special assistant, and signed a rare and extremely-deserved lifetime contract with the organization in 1993. He spent the next three decades as a fixture in San Francisco, present at games, ceremonies, and World Series parades. Baseball — with its late-blooming careers, bizarre contract system, and at-times stale personalities — is not exactly a sport where players routinely form unbreakable bonds with cities, fanbases, or organizations.

But the Giants were Willie Mays, and Willie Mays was the Giants. The Giants are Willie Mays, and Willie Mays is the Giants. No player in baseball history is as intertwined with a team’s history, culture, and existence as Willie Mays is with the Giants. No player ever will be.

The namesake and numbersake for the Giants’ address, 24 Willie Mays Plaza. The namesake for the highest honor in the sport, the Willie Mays World Series MVP Award. The godfather of the greatest hitter to ever live, Barry Bonds.

The greatest baseball player of all time.

It’s either a cruel or a poignant twist that Mays died just two days before the Rickwood Field game, an event many years in the making, designed in large part to honor him. But the rest of the final chapter of Mays’ story is far from cruel or tragic.

He died at home, at peace, and with family. May we all be so lucky. He died after a life that was beyond well lived. May we all be so lucky. He died having forever changed a sport, a city, and a community, all three of which he loved dearly. May we all be so lucky.

Rest in peace, Willie Mays.

The greatest baseball player of all time.