TW Hit List - Willie Mays

"They throw the ball, I hit it. They hit the ball, I catch it." – Willie Mays

As Mr. Bonds chases his record-tying 755th home run (he’s stuck at 754 as of this writing), his Godfather, Willie Mays, checks in as our latest Hit List entry. Williams professes that it was a virtual toss-up for who should come next on the Hit List, Mays or Aaron. Their career numbers are close enough to be the same, excepting Mays’ stolen bases. Williams mentions that Mays had an electric effect on the game that Aaron may have lacked. He quips, “Aaron had a flair for consistency, while Mays had a consistent flair.” Mays certainly seemed to have the flair for the dramatic. He frequently came up big in the Fall Classic and he owned the All-Star Game. He almost invented the basket catch, or at least single-handedly brought it into prominence.

Concerning the numbers, it is true that Mays and Aaron are difficult to distinguish. What makes Aaron obviously stand out is his significantly higher totals for RBIs, runs and home-runs. However, when adjusted for at-bats, there is almost no difference, and in fact, Mays finished with an OPS of .944, beating Aaron’s .932. As it was, Mays finished with 660 HR’s, 1,903 RBIs, and a .302 batting average. He was MVP twice, led the league in OPS five times, and was named The Sporting News Player of the Decade for the 1960’s. Like Angels fans’ beloved Vladimir Guerrero, he was a hard, free swinger who would flail away at some very bad pitches, but then who produced hits on pitches few else could make contact with. Besides his hitting, he won eleven consecutive Gold Gloves. He is well-known for his famous “Catch”, but sportswriter Arnold Hano said this about the throw the followed, “But the throw! What an astonishing throw to make all other throws ever before it, even the four Mays himself had made during fielding practice, appear the flings of teenage girls. This was the throw of a giant, the throw of a howitzer made human."

The game is for the fans, and Mays put on the show. Williams suggests he was the Michael Jordan of 1950’s and 1960’s baseball. So, perhaps Mays should be accorded higher honors than Aaron. However, Aaron was a model of consistency and is not one of baseball’s enduring virtues its nature to reward those few who separate themselves from the rest by meeting this great game’s daily demands with extraordinary excellence? I suppose baseball again mirrors life. People are different and there is room in this world for differences in opinion and taste, within reasonable limits. Within a framework of accepted decency, we can appreciate the artist and the businessman. So it is with our great game. While Aaron modeled sustained excellence, Mays played with “controlled abandon”, and they loved him for it.

One of the more noted baseball announcer lines originated in reference to Willie Mays. Hall of Fame sportswriter Bob Stevens described a triple hit by Mays in the 1959 Midsummer Classic by saying, “The only man who could have caught that ball, hit it.”

"No record book reflects this kind of concentration, determination, perseverance or ability. As a player, Willie Mays could never be captured by mere statistics."--Harry Jupiter