RIP Willie Mays

[George K]

https://www.nytimes.com/2024/06/18/sports/willie-mays-dead.html

Willie Mays, the spirited center fielder whose brilliance at the plate, in the field and on the basepaths for the Giants led many to call him the greatest all-around player in baseball history, died on Tuesday in Palo Alto, Calif. He was 93.

Larry Baer, the president and chief executive of the Giants, said Mays, the oldest living member of the Baseball Hall of Fame, died in an assisted living facility.

Mays compiled extraordinary statistics in 22 National League seasons with the Giants in New York and San Francisco and a brief return to New York with the Mets, preceded by a 1948 stint in the Negro leagues. He hit 660 career home runs and had 3,293 hits and a .301 career batting average.

But he did more than personify the complete ballplayer. An exuberant style of play and an effervescent personality made Mays one of the game’s, and America’s, most charismatic figures, a name that even people far afield from the baseball world recognized instantly as a national treasure.

[Jolly]

Great baseball player. Other guys may have hit a few more dingers or stolen more bases in a year, but the man was a wonderfully gifted all-around player. Speed, power, athleticism, he could do it all.

[Mik]

Quite a life.

[LuFins Dad]

I saw this picture of Terry Bradshaw and Willie Mays making its way around the internet yesterday. It’s in the locker room at the NL Championship Series in Pittsburgh in 1972. I didn’t realize the significance of it until this thread.

[bachophile]

I saw Willie play live in candlestick as a giant and at shea as a met. I guess I’m old.