Baseball great Willie Mays died peacefully Tuesday surrounded by his family in the Bay Area. Mays was beloved by fans for his dazzling play, his exuberant smile and for giving to the game’s next generation. Geoff Bennett takes a look at the Say Hey Kid's legacy with Howard Bryant of ESPN.
Notice: Transcripts are machine and human generated and lightly edited for accuracy. They may contain errors.
Geoff Bennett:
Finally tonight, we say goodbye to the Say Hey Kid.
Baseball great Willie Mays died peacefully surrounded by his family on Tuesday afternoon in the Bay Area, where he's forever remembered as a star of the San Francisco Giants. He was 93 years old. We look back now on his legacy.
Announcer:
Way back, back. It is — oh, my!
Geoff Bennett:
His play was the stuff of legend.
Announcer:
Willie Mays just brought this crowd to its feet with a catch which must have been an optical illusion.
Geoff Bennett:
Known simply as The Catch in game one of the 1954 World Series, a championship Mays would go on to win, the iconic and logic-defying play captured the magic of Willie Mays' career, one that earned him the nickname the Say Hey Kid.
(Singing)
Geoff Bennett:
Appearing in a record 24 All-Star Games, he could do it all. With 12 gold gloves, the center fielder could catch. He could steal bases with blazing speed, sometimes losing his hat along the way, and when it was his turn at bat, home run after home run after home run; 660 home runs rocketed past the fences, the sixth most all time.
BOB COSTAS, Hall of Fame Sports Broadcaster: I think the general consensus now is that Willie Mays is the greatest so-called five-tool player in baseball history, hit for average, hit for power, run, field, and throw. He could do all of those things at the highest possible level.
Geoff Bennett:
Mays was voted into the Hall of Fame in 1979, his first year of eligibility.
But his beginnings were far more humble. Born in Westfield, Alabama, in 1931, Mays was the son of a Negro Leagues player, and he started his pro career in 1948 with the Negro League Birmingham Black Barons at just 16 years old. In 1951, he made his Major League debut with the New York Giants, a year he captured National League Rookie of the Year, beloved by fans for his dazzling play, his exuberant smile, and for giving to the game's next generation.
Mays would play stickball with children in New York City streets.
Willie Mays, Former Major League Baseball Player:
They'd knock on my window. I would go out, play stickball for about an hour, two hours, and then I'd buy everybody ice creams.
Geoff Bennett:
Less than a decade later, his play went coast-to-coast, when the New York Giants became the San Francisco Giants. Even though he was already a star and a World Series champ, the welcome wasn't always warm.
Willie Mays:
Every time I went to the plate, they were expecting a home run out of me. But why? I mean, why are they booing me?
Geoff Bennett:
But it didn't take long for Mays to win over another city and another fan base.
BOB COSTAS:
Joe DiMaggio, though he played for the Yankees, was from San Francisco, and San Franciscans wanted their own players, so they had Willie McCovey and Orlando Cepeda. They felt like maybe Willie was a New York Giant.
But then, over time, he won them all over, because, even those though those were Hall of Fame players, Willie was the best of all of them.
Geoff Bennett:
Taking the Boys of the Bay to a World Series appearance in 1962 and an MVP season in 1965.
In 1972, Mays went back to where it all began, New York City, to play for the Mets. The aging superstar played less and less, but he helped elevate yet another team to the World Series in 1973, a series they would lose.
But when he retired that same year, he looked back on a storied career and knew he'd left nothing on the field.
Willie Mays:
The game of baseball has been great to me.
Geoff Bennett:
Others after him, even outside the world of sport, acknowledged the path he paved.
BARACK OBAMA, Former President of the United States: It's because of Giants like Willie that someone like me could even think about running for president.
Geoff Bennett:
Former President Barack Obama honored Mays with the 2015 Presidential Medal of Freedom for his indelible mark on American sports and society.
For some more perspective on the legacy of Willie Mays, we're joined by Howard Bryant, author and senior writer for ESPN.
Howard, thank you for being with us.
Howard Bryant, ESPN:
My pleasure.
Geoff Bennett:
What made Willie Mays the signature player of his day and ultimately the greatest all-around player of all time?
Howard Bryant:
Well, I think the first thing about him is the electricity.
I think it's an interesting contrast to baseball today, where the game is essentially sold by math and science and numbers and launch angle and exit velocity and statistics. And William Mays was joy. He was electricity. He was emotion.
The people who talk about him with that sort of reverence, when they watched him play, he made you feel something. It was all about the projection of young kids wanting to be like him, the real idolizing of a hero who could do things on the baseball field that everyone wished they could do.
And then he also put up the huge numbers as well. But when you think about Willie Mays as a player, the thing that you think about most isn't the 660 home runs of the 3,283 hits or any of those things. It's the movement. It's the catch. Even in black and white — people turn their turn their backs on things that are black and white these days, but, even then, you watch him run the bases, you watch him move, and that's a ball player.
That makes you want to go to the ballpark. It brings back all the memories. He was representative of the golden age of New York baseball in the 1950s and baseball in general.
Geoff Bennett:
And is that how he managed to capture the American imagination?
Howard Bryant:
Well, I think it was two things.
I think it was that, obviously, I think charisma. We love stars, and we love stars especially as we're getting into the television age, where it's not — you're moving away from baseball and sports and media in general being a newspaper industry into a television industry. And to watch him play just was pure joy.
I think it was that. And I also think it was something else, which people don't talk about a whole lot when it comes to Willie Mays. And that was, in contrast to Jackie Robinson, who was a smoldering player, who was constantly pushing boundaries, Willie was the Black player who was there at the beginning of integration, who didn't force that on you.
So you were able to enjoy him. You were able to see integration in action without the heavy politics of it. And that was a very interesting balance for him. But when you think about the joy that he brought to the game, it was an uncomplicated joy, whereas Jackie Robinson was an extremely complicated player, because he was so much more political.
I think that had a lot to do with it.
Geoff Bennett:
How did Willie Mays view his role and his responsibility? Because, to your point, he did face some criticism, including from Jackie Robinson, for not using his platform, his position in American life to be more prominent in the civil rights movement.
Howard Bryant:
That's right.
Not everyone will protest. Not everyone is a marcher. Not everyone is the one who was going to make those headlines. Willie still had to deal with things. Willie was a rookie in 1951. And during spring training, when the Giants, New York Giants, used to train in Arizona, Willie wasn't allowed to stay with his teammates because Scottsdale was a sundown town. Scottsdale, Arizona, did not allow Blacks after sundown.
So Willie dealt with a lot of things. When Willie — when the Giants moved to San Francisco, Willie wasn't allowed to buy a house down in the peninsula. There were all kinds of different things that Willie went through. Willie was absolutely hurt by Jackie's criticism.
In fact, in Jackie Robinson's book, his 1964 book, "Baseball Has Done It, he criticizes Mays for not using that outsized celebrity for — to force people to take him as a whole, that, if you're going to enjoy my talent, if you're going to emulate me, then you also have to allow me and want me to live next door to you.
I can't just carry that inside. Willie carried it inside. And I think he was very conflicted by, one, that it wasn't his personality, but, two, he was being criticized for things that hurt him as well.
Geoff Bennett:
Lastly, Howard, how did Willie Mays elevate the game of baseball?
Howard Bryant:
Well, once again, it's an interesting contrast to where we are today.
When you think about baseball, the very first thing that baseball, that people talk about with the sport, it's not just the fact that there's only 6.3 percent Black American participation in the game. It's also the game lacks stars. Who's the greatest player in baseball today? There's no baseball player at the equivalent, say, of a Tom Brady or a LeBron James or any of those great players in the other sports that people — or a Lionel Messi — that people just look at and you say, yes, that's our game.
Willie Mays was a staple. When you said baseball, when you said Willie Mays's name, everybody knew who you were talking about. He used to be on "The Donna Reed Show." He was on sitcoms. And he was the face of a sport for an entire generation or two.
And that's what sports does for people. And Willie Mays was the — Willie Mays was the guy who made you connect to the sport. And that lasted until the very day he passed.
Geoff Bennett:
Howard Bryant, thanks so much for sharing your insights with us. We appreciate it.
Howard Bryant:
My pleasure.
