24: Life Stories and Lessons from the Say Hey Kid

by Willie Mays

SIX HUNDRED AND SIXTY career home runs. Two 50-home run seasons. Twelve Gold Gloves. A glance at Willie Mays’ page on Baseball Reference reveals he led the league in one significant category or another 37 times. Thirty-seven.

He would cheerfully acknowledge that he purposely chose a cap a half size too small so it would fly off as he sped around the bases or across the outfield. “You have got to entertain the people.”

Mays’ cumulative accomplishments are unparalleled—660 home runs, 3,283 hits, 338 stolen bases, 12 straight Gold Glove awards, 24 All-Star Game appearances—as well as his five-tool proficiency: hitting for average and power, fielding, throwing, and baserunning.

Mays and Hank Aaron are the last living Hall of Famers to come out of the Negro Leagues, which began in 1920 under the leadership of Rube Foster.

“When we think about Willie Mays and in the same context Hank Aaron, they are two of the guys who validate how good the Negro Leagues were,” said Bob Kendrick, president of the Negro Leagues Museum in Kansas City. “As I give people tours of this museum and tell the stories of Josh Gibson and Cool Papa Bell and all these great stars who preceded Willie Mays, people are always respectful. But you could tell there’s this air of skepticism. And then we come across this photograph of a seventeen-year-old Willie Mays in that great picture of the Birmingham Black Barons celebrating. All of a sudden, he validates all those other players.

In the 1951 World Series, Monte Irvin, Willie Mays, and Hank Thompson formed the majors’ first all-African-American outfield. (Osvaldo Salas/Collection of Rick Swig)

BASEBALL DURING WILLIE Mays’ playing career didn’t involve bat flips. Or chest bumps. Or different celebratory greetings for every teammate.

If you hit a home run, you didn’t stand in the batter’s box and admire the flight of the ball. You put your head down. You quickly ran the bases. You shook hands. You sat in the dugout. Mays did all that. He played the game right, as it was supposed to be played in Willie’s time. But he did a lot more. He was more than a hitter, more than a fielder, more than a runner. More than someone who suited up and played nine innings. He was more than a ballplayer. Baseball’s greatest star was baseball’s greatest entertainer.

The ball was hit, and I ran toward the wall knowing I’m making the catch and thinking about how I’d get the ball back. I stopped in front of the wall and made a very quick U-turn. It was simple to me. You go back, you catch the ball, you spin, you turn, you throw it back to the infield. I don’t like to exaggerate, but I was young and cocky enough to know I could catch any ball in the park. But the important thing was for the runners to stay on the bases. Doby got only one base, and Rosen went back to first.

The baseball world is blessed that the moment—a six-and-a-half-second sequence from Wertz’s contact to Mays’ release—was captured on black-and-white film, permitting generations of fans to witness a once-in-a-lifetime play that never will be duplicated. Big-league ballparks aren’t Polo Grounds–sized anymore. The farthest to dead center in the majors is 420 feet at Detroit’s Comerica Park. When Jack Brickhouse broadcast The Catch, he noted in his call the 483-foot marker in center at the back end of a recessed area and surmised with partner Russ Hodges that the ball must have traveled 460 feet.

Willie Mays’ famous World Series catch in 1954 is depicted in artist Thom Ross’ series of life-sized paintings that were placed in front of the New York skyline. (Guy Watkins)

“There wasn’t much more room to go,” Miller said. “Willie stopped on a dime, wheeled around, and heaved the throw back. If it’s 483 to the memorial, I can’t see the wall Willie was about to hit being any less than 460, and it could have been closer to 463 or 465. If that’s correct, Willie would have caught that ball 450 to 455 feet from home plate. Using aerial shots, it’s a good estimate that it was 18 to 20 feet from the front wall to the back wall. So I think it’s a very safe assessment he’s no closer than 450 when he caught that ball.”

Regardless of the distance of Wertz’s clout, it would have been a home run in any of today’s parks.

World Series MVP awards weren’t issued until the following year, but Mays said there’s no doubt the 1954 recipient would have been Rhodes, who pinch-hit for Monte Irvin in each of the first three games and finished the Series 4-for-6 with two homers and seven RBIs. Rhodes tied Game 2 with a pinch single and also homered in a 3–1 win. The Giants won the third game 6–2, again thanks to Rhodes, who hit a two-run single in the third. He wasn’t needed in Game 4 as the Giants clinched with a 7–4 victory. Mays hit .286 in four games, but The Catch was the defining moment of the Series and the standard by which all great catches have been measured.

“I was in the bullpen when Willie made that catch. They needed an extra catcher to warm up the pitchers,” recalled former teammate Joey Amalfitano, who was as close to Mays as anybody because the bullpen was in fair territory in right-center field. “I was just a young guy. I didn’t know what the hell was going on. But I did know that when the ball was struck, Willie’s body language indicated to me that this guy had the ball tracked, and what presence of mind to get the ball back to the infield so quickly. The good news is, every World Series, we get to see that play. In the clip, you can see him pivoting off his right foot, turning around, throwing the ball back to the middle of the infield and falling to the ground in position to do push-ups.

Farther away in the Giants’ dugout, pitcher Johnny Antonelli, who would start Game 2, also had confidence the catch would be made. “He tapped his glove. We knew whenever he tapped his glove, he was going to catch the ball. It didn’t matter if it’s hit 450 feet. This was a miraculous catch, perfect throw. Typical for Willie. I was 12–0 in the Polo Grounds that year before I finally got a loss. I let them hit it to center and then watched Willie run it down. He was amazing, the greatest I’ve seen. He could’ve played the whole outfield by himself. I really felt that way.”

“You know what amazes me?” asked a ninety-six-year-old Hano. “When that ball was hit, the second it was hit, Willie turned and knew exactly where he was going to end up. How do these super athletes do that?

I mean, he knew he would outrun that ball. It’s just an incredible moment. I was in the perfect spot, a very lucky guy. I could’ve gone to a ballgame, and that ball could’ve landed behind him, and the Giants could’ve lost 4–2, and that would’ve been that. As luck would have it, I got up off my seat, my plank, and watched that ball coming. Well, the catch was pretty incredible, and then he whirled and made that great throw. He knew he was going to be throwing to second base to keep Rosen from advancing to second and stop Doby from trying to score from second. It was all in his head.” There’s more to the story.

So I go back and make the catch. They say I tapped my glove. Usually when I do that, I got it. It’s a matter of, “I could catch that.” I threw the ball without looking because it’s got to be quick. You’ve always got to be quick getting the ball back at the Polo Grounds. You also see in the film no one came out for a cut. Alvin Dark and Davey Williams stayed in the infield. They knew I’d get it to ’em. I was told I threw a strike to Davey at second. I think the throw was the key to the play, and I think the play was the key to the whole World Series because if that ball gets past me, Cleveland has two runs in and Vic on third.

“Willie ran and ran and ran and got to where he thought the ball would fall,” Irvin said. “But the wind drifted around to his right. So instead of moving his glove across his body, he reached out and caught the damn thing barehanded. On the way in, Durocher says, ‘Let’s give Willie the silent treatment, have a little fun with him.’ Willie gets to the dugout, and nobody says anything to him. Willie finally says, ‘Hey, Leo, ain’t you going to say something?’ Leo says, ‘What do you want me to say?’ ‘Well, I thought I made a pretty good catch out there.’ So Durocher says, ‘I missed it. What you have to do is go out the next inning and do it all over again.’” Mays laughed when hearing Irvin’s account of the story.

Yeah, that’s what happened. Rocky sliced it. I was running for that ball but couldn’t get my arm far enough out to catch it, so I reached out with my bare hand and caught it. I got to the dugout, and no one was saying anything. “Leo, you see what I did?” He said, “Go out and do it again, and then I’ll congratulate you.”

There was no downplaying a catch Mays made at Candlestick Park less than a month before his thirty-ninth birthday. Cincinnati’s Bobby Tolan hit a ball above the cyclone fence in right-center that Bobby Bonds was chasing, but at the last moment, Mays dashed to the scene, used his left foot to brace himself against the fence and leap over the 375-foot marker to make the catch over Bonds. Neither called for the ball. It wasn’t that type of play. It wasn’t known if either could snag it. Both extended their gloves above the fence, and it was Mays who came down with it. The players collided and tumbled to the ground, still tangled. Mays fell on Bonds and lost his breath, and Bonds reached into Mays’ glove, pulled out the ball, and showed it to the umpires. The catch saved the game for Gaylord Perry, who pitched all nine innings in a 2–1 win. I knew Tolan could pull the ball, so I was able to get a good jump when he hit it in the gap. The only question was how I would catch the ball. We both went up for it. Bobby fell, I fell. I felt his knee in my stomach, and I was out a couple of seconds. I think that was just as good as the catch in the World Series.

The game was televised nationally on NBC’s Saturday Game of the Week. Bob Costas hadn’t joined the broadcast crew by then but recalls being mesmerized with Mays’ athleticism as the play unfolded. “I remember thinking, ‘Wait a minute. This guy was thirty-eight, thirty-nine years old,’” Costas said. “It’s not as storied as the World Series catch, but it was just a phenomenal play.”

The World Series catch, though admittedly not on top of Mays’ list, always will be the play for which he’s revered. “He did make better, and there were several other plays he regards as better,” Costas said, “but you have to consider the stage. It’s in the early days of the World Series being televised. The Polo Grounds was so massive that when the ball left the bat and people were watching on a black-and-white TV, it just didn’t seem possible that someone could cover that much ground. As the ball left the bat, people were thinking, ‘Is this ...

“When a player is iconic, he needs a signature moment. We see (Hank) Aaron in our mind’s eye between second and third when he hit his 715th. We see (Mickey) Mantle hitting the ball off the facade in Yankee Stadium. (Sandy) Koufax pitched four no-hitters, but it’s the perfect game with Vin Scully’s call that really sets him in the mind’s eye. Ted Williams homering in his last at-bat. Those things capture the imaginat...

“I’m not sure there are other defensive moments in the history of the game that are quite as famous or iconic as that one,” curator Erik Strohl said. “In this case, the glove is of the utmost importance. It’s really cool we’re able to share it.”