“When I broke in, I didn’t know many people by name,” Mays once explained, “so I would just say, ‘Say, hey,’ and the writers picked that up.”
The world lost another icon of sports and our own collective memories. Willie Mays died on Tuesday and as Barry Bonds stated on X, “I’m speechless and devastated.”
For people in my generation, he was the greatest, Tom Brady had nothing on him. Only a select few players could imitate or by some fluke of fate come close to catching “the catch.” Even he didn’t think that was his greatest catch back in 1955 against the Cleveland Indians during game two of the World Series.
What seemed to set him apart from others of that time period was his charisma, his personality, and his humanity. Though he could have been as bitter as any black man born in Alabama at the height of Jim Crow segregation. He chose not to be that way, which made him such an incredible human being.
This weekend the Giants are playing St Louis at the ballpark Willie got his feet wet, Rickwood Field. That I’m sure will now be as much a memorial honoring Willie, as it had planned to be to honor the legend himself, who on Sunday declined the invitation to attend because his health was failing.
However, the outcome of the game, whether St. Louis or the Giants prevail, it is more than apparent we all lost the greatest of all time. I will remember him up to the day I breathe my last breath.
Jerry Schellhammer 