America at Large:At a press conference accompanying his induction into the Baseball Hall of Fame 28 years ago, Willie Mays was asked to name the best player he'd ever seen. "I don't mean to be bashful," he said, "but I was", writes George Kimball.
Willie Howard Mays might not be the only high-school dropout to have been granted honorary doctorates by two Ivy League universities (Yale and Dartmouth), but he is surely the only one whose name is also included in songs written by Bob Dylan, John Fogerty, Terry Cashman and Jughead.
Tuesday night's Major League All-Star Game at San Francisco's AT&T Park turned out to be a virtual Willie Mays love-fest. The 76-year-old icon was presented with a 1958-vintage pink Cadillac Eldorado (the keys were handed over by his infamous godson Barry Bonds), and he threw out the ceremonial first pitch - from centre-field.
It was a moving occasion, not unlike the night in 1999 when a wheelchair-bound Ted Williams made his last Fenway Park appearance on the eve of the All-Star game. (Come to think of it, I was packing my bags for Carnoustie that night as well.) It also brought to mind Williams' observation that "the All-Star game was invented for Willie Mays." (Willie played in more of them - 24 - than any man before or since.) Even Ichiro Suzuki, the Seattle Mariners' star selected Wednesday night's Most Valuable Player, was caught up in the sentimental outpouring.
"To be able to be on the same field as Willie Mays at that moment is something I will never forget the rest of my life," said Ichiro through his interpreter. "I know this is impossible, but I wish I was able to watch Willie Mays play just once."
The odd part is that while Mays played 15 of his 22 seasons in San Francisco, that city never truly embraced him. Shortly after the team relocated to California in 1958, it developed a new, home-grown cast of stars like Orlando Cepeda, Willie McCovey, Juan Marichal and Barry's father, Bobby Bonds.
They were San Francisco Giants. Willie Mays would always be regarded as a New York Giant - both in San Francisco and in New York.
He had joined the professional ranks at 15, and after a few years toiling in the Negro Leagues was signed by the Giants in 1950. By the next year he was in the Giants' line-up, and, apart from a season and a half in the army, would remain there for the next two decades.
He was the on-deck hitter, awaiting his turn at bat, when Bobby Thomson hit the improbable "shot heard round the world" to propel the Giants into the 1951 World Series, and in the 1954 series against the Indians, his incredible dash culminating in a back-to-the-plate catch of a long blast by Cleveland's Vic Wertz set the stage for a 4-0 Giants' sweep.
During Mays' heyday all three New York teams were blessed with future Hall of Fame centrefielders - Mickey Mantle in the Bronx with the Yankees, Duke Snider in Brooklyn with the Dodgers and Mays in Manhattan with the Giants.
Although partisan fans debated who was best, any objective view would concede the top spot to Mays. He was not only the best defensive centrefielder in the game, but his 660 career home runs placed him third on the all-time list behind only Henry Aaron and Babe Ruth. (He would in time be overtaken by Bonds.)
After the Giants and Dodgers relocated, in tandem, to the West Coast in 1958, outraged New Yorkers vilified both teams (and their venal owners), but their love for Mays never abated.
Although his New York manager Leo Durocher said of Mays, "he lit up the room when he came in; he was a joy to be around," most sportswriters did not share that sentiment. Like Ted Williams, Mays could be, well, difficult.
Although as a kid growing up I saw a lot of him on television, I didn't personally cover Mays until his last, misbegotten season. In the twilight of his career, Giants owner Horace Stoneham had arranged for his return to New York by dealing him to the Mets, who improbably reached the 1973 World Series - the first Fall Classic I ever covered.
Although Willie did get the first hit in that Series, he only got one more as the Mets lost in seven games to the Oakland As. No longer able to get his bat around on the fastball, he was embarrassed on several occasions at the plate, and during one game he literally fell down chasing a fly ball in the outfield.
"Growing old," he said of the experience, "is a helpless hurt".
A few years later, after he had taken a public relations job with the Atlantic City casino, the staff at Bally's Park Place arranged for a one-on-one interview. By then, baseball commissioner Bowie Kuhn, skittish about the gambling association, had barred Mays (and Mickey Mantle) from involvement in organised baseball. (Both would be reinstated by Kuhn's successor Peter Ueberroth in 1985.) It was a terrible interview; Mays seemed obstinate and bitter, but mostly anxious to be somewhere else.
When I returned to Boston wondering how I was going to turn a one-sided conversation into a story, my boss, Bob Sales, laughed knowingly and assured me, "Willie's always been that way".
In Tuesday night's All-Star game, Suzuki became the first Japanese to win the MVP award after his fifth-inning, inside-the-park home run provided the margin of victory in a 5-4 win that once again assured the American League of home-field advantage in this fall's World Series.
Suzuki's all-round skills remind some of Mays in his prime, but after Ichiro's hit eluded NL outfielder Ken Griffey and he raced around the bases for the first-ever inside-the-park home run in All-Star game history, San Jose Mercury columnist Mark Purdy was moved to note, "If Willie Mays in his prime had been available to field the ball Suzuki hit off the wall, Tuesday night's result might have been different. The National League might even have won."
