Willie Mays, one of many biggest baseball gamers within the historical past of the game, died on Tuesday afternoon on the age of 93. The San Francisco Giants made the announcement.
Mays completed his profession with 660 dwelling runs, 339 stolen bases and a .301 common, whereas additionally being extensively thought to be the best defensive middle fielder ever with 12 Gold Gloves.
When his energy, potential to hit for common, velocity and protection had been all mixed, there’s a very compelling argument to be made that he was the best all-around participant in baseball. He was additionally a two-time MVP and inducted into the Corridor of Fame in 1979, showing on 409 of the 432 ballots forged.
Nevertheless it was not simply his general numbers that made him a Corridor of Fame and a legend of the sport. It was additionally the actual fact he managed to seek out himself on the middle of some baseball’s largest moments.
Probably the most well-known of these moments got here throughout Sport 1 of the 1954 World Sequence when he made what is taken into account to be one of many biggest and most important defensive performs ever when he made his well-known over-the-shoulder catch deep in middle discipline of the Polo Grounds.
Mays additionally hit .286 in that World Sequence to assist the New York Giants win the title. It was the one World Sequence win of Mays’ profession.
Three years earlier, Mays helped play a starring position for the Giants through the 1951 season once they made their beautiful comeback within the Nationwide League to power a playoff with the Brooklyn Dodgers. They completed the season on 39-8 run to erase what gave the impression to be an insurmountable Dodgers lead, after which received the pennant with Bobby Thomson’s shot heard ‘around the world dwelling run.
Mays received the Rookie of the 12 months award that season, and in a enjoyable piece of baseball trivia, he was the on-deck batter when Thomson hit his well-known dwelling run.
Mays nearly had a significant clutch second of his personal through the 1962 World Sequence, solely to be foiled by mom nature and the weather. With the Giants trailing the New York Yankees 1-0 within the backside of the ninth inning of Sport 7, Mays ripped a two-out double down the fitting discipline line that will have in all probability scored Matty Alou beneath higher climate situations. However as a result of the sphere had been soaked by days of rain the ball got here to a cease and allowed Yankees proper fielder Roger Maris to carry Alou at third.
On the very subsequent at-bat, Willie McCovey ripped his well-known line drive that was caught by Yankees second baseman Bobby Richardson to protect the sequence win. McCovey later mentioned it was the toughest ball he had ever hit. Had it gotten by, it seemingly would have scored Alou and Mays to win the sport and the sequence.
