{"id":2273149,"date":"2024-06-21T03:28:02","date_gmt":"2024-06-21T07:28:02","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/willie-mays-1931-2024\/"},"modified":"2024-06-21T03:33:16","modified_gmt":"2024-06-21T07:33:16","slug":"willie-mays-1931-2024","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/willie-mays-1931-2024\/","title":{"rendered":"Willie Mays (1931-2024)"},"content":{"rendered":"<aside class=\"mashsb-container mashsb-main mashsb-stretched\"><div class=\"mashsb-box\"><div class=\"mashsb-count mash-medium\" style=\"&quot;\"><div class=\"counts mashsbcount\">6<\/div><span class=\"mashsb-sharetext\">SHARES<\/span><\/div><div class=\"mashsb-buttons\"><a class=\"mashicon-facebook mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/sharer.php?u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.conservativenewsdaily.net%2Fbreaking-news%2Fwillie-mays-1931-2024%2F\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Facebook<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-twitter mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/intent\/tweet?text=&amp;url=https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/?p=2273149&amp;via=ConservNewsDly\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Twitter<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-subscribe mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"#\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Subscribe<\/span><\/a><div class=\"onoffswitch2 mash-medium mashsb-noshadow\" style=\"display:none\"><\/div><\/div>\n            <\/div>\n                <div style=\"clear:both\"><\/div><\/aside>\n            <!-- Share buttons by mashshare.net - Version: 4.0.47--><p>The \u2064summary\u2064 discusses the legendary\u2063 status \u2063of\u2063 Willie Mays, considered by many to be the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/jason-whitlock-explains-why-aaron-judges-record-breaking-62nd-home-run-was-ruined-and-how-its-a-symptom-of-a-destroyed-american-culture\/\" title=\"Jason Whitlock Explains Why Aaron Judge\u2019s Record Breaking 62nd Home Run Was Ruined and How It\u2019s a Symptom of a Destroyed American Culture\">greatest baseball player<\/a> \u2064due to his exceptional \u200ccombination of five key skills: hitting, power, base running, defense, and\u200b throwing. Mays&#8217;s influence extends \u2064beyond his era, inspiring generations of players. Born in 1931 in Alabama, he began his professional career at 17 with the Negro leagues before\u200c joining the MLB with the New York Giants. His career was briefly interrupted by military service, but he \u2064quickly established himself as a premier player upon \u2062return,\u2062 earning multiple\u2064 MVP awards and a record number of All-Star \u2064Game appearances. Mays&#8217;s impact on and off the field is celebrated as\u200d he remains a towering figure in the history of baseball.  <\/p>\n<p class=\"readmore\">\n    <button onclick=\"showReadMore()\" id=\"readmorebtn\">Read more&#8230;<\/button>\n<\/p>\n<hr id=\"line\">\n<span id=\"more\"><\/p>\n<div>\n<p>We are for the most part not blessed to live in the era of giants. The greatest of all times in their fields \u2014 Michelangelo in sculpture, Shakespeare in drama, Homer (or Dante) in poetry, Raphael in painting, Beethoven in music \u2014 all lived hundreds (and in some cases thousands) of years ago. Long gone are the days of the preeminent political leaders such as Washington, Lincoln, and Churchill as well. But <a href=\"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/breaking-nba-derails-mark-cuban-plans-to-banish-anthem-from-dallas-nba-games\/\" title=\"BREAKING: NBA Derails Mark Cuban Plans To Banish Anthem From Dallas NBA Games\">professional sports<\/a> is a domain that is still new enough to have allowed some of us to glimpse its legends in our lifetimes. One of these truly transcendent greats, Willie Mays, took his leave from us on June 18 at the age of 93.<\/p>\n<p>A Giant on the field, and a giant of his sport, Willie Mays was considered by many to have been the greatest <a href=\"https:\/\/www.washingtonexaminer.com\/tag\/baseball\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\" title>baseball<\/a> player to have ever lived. Ted Williams may have been a better pure hitter, Babe Ruth may have had more power, Rickey Henderson may have been a better base runner, Ozzie Smith may have been a better defender, and Roberto Clemente may have had a better arm. But no one combined all of these five essential baseball skills into a more complete and exquisite mixture than Mays, making him the epitome of the five-tool player. For this reason, the past four generations of kids who grew up playing baseball in their backyards all knew that for as cool as Ken Griffey Jr. or Reggie Jackson or even Mickey Mantle may have been, if there was one player you wanted to model your game after, it was Willie Mays.<\/p>\n<figure><figcaption>San Francisco Giants\u2019 Willie Mays poses for a photo during baseball spring training in 1972. (AP Photo)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>Willie Howard Mays Jr. was born on May 6, 1931, in Westfield, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.washingtonexaminer.com\/tag\/alabama\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\" title>Alabama<\/a>. A superior athlete in his youth who was a <a href=\"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/aaron-hernandezs-brother-arrested-for-allegedly-planning-school-shootings\/\" title=\"Aaron Hernandez's brother arrested for alleged school shooting plot.\">star high school football<\/a>, basketball, and baseball player, Mays began his baseball career at the age of 17 in 1948 in the Negro leagues with the Birmingham Black Barons. After hitting over .300 for two seasons and helping lead the Barons to a Negro League World Series, the New York Giants signed Mays in 1950. Mays moved rapidly through the Giants\u2019 minor league system, and by the following year Mays was called up to the majors, where his powerful bat helped him win the National League Rookie of the Year and also helped the Giants win the National League pennant. The next several years of Mays\u2019s career would be interrupted by military service. By the time he returned in 1954, Mays doubled his 1951 home run output, raised his batting average by over 70 points, and won the first of his two National League Most Valuable Player awards. <\/p>\n<p><strong><a href=\"http:\/\/washingtonexaminer.com\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\" title>CLICK HERE TO READ MORE FROM THE WASHINGTON EXAMINER<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n<p>In a sport in which numbers have always been the most valuable currency, Mays accumulated more riches than just about any other player in the history of the game: 24 All-Star Game appearances (one behind Hank Aaron for most all time), 12 Gold Glove Awards (tied with Roberto Clemente for most all time for an outfielder), 660 home runs (third place all time when he retired), one batting title, four stolen base titles, four home run titles, two 30-30 (30 stolen bases and 30 home runs) seasons, and a 300-300 (300 stolen bases and 300 home runs) career (the first to ever accomplish that feat).<\/p>\n<p>But numbers alone do not tell the story of Mays\u2019s career. There was a wonder, joy, and sense of magic to the way he played, which, far more than the gaudy stats, accounts for the hold he\u2019s had on a half-century of fans. Mays\u2019s unique brew of athletic wonder and baseball magic was encapsulated in one of the most famous plays in American sports history. Certain sports legends\u2019 career-defining moments are so well known that we need no more than two words to conjure them: Michael Jordan had \u201cThe Shot,\u201d John Elway had \u201cThe Drive,\u201d both Larry Bird and John Havlicek had \u201cthe steal,\u201d and Willie Mays had \u201cThe Catch.\u201d In Game 1 of the 1954 World Series, Cleveland\u2019s Vic Wertz hit a long line drive into deep center field that seemed destined to be a stand-up double, maybe even a triple. But Mays, who had been tracking the ball the instant it catapulted off the bat, sprinted backward and, seconds before crashing into the outfield wall, stretched out his glove, caught the ball over his left shoulder, heaved the ball back toward the infield, and spun 360 degrees to avoid hurtling into the fence. Mays\u2019s spectacular play propelled the underdog Giants to a Game 1 win and a 4-0 World Series victory \u2014 and earned the so-called Say Hey Kid a permanent place in the American cultural pantheon.<\/p>\n<p><em>Daniel Ross Goodman is a <\/em>Washington Examiner <em>contributing writer and a postdoctoral fellow at Harvard Divinity School. His latest book, <\/em>Soloveitchik\u2019s Children: Irving Greenberg, David Hartman, Jonathan Sacks, and the Future of Jewish Theology in America<em>, was published last summer by the University of Alabama Press.<\/em><\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<p><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>We don&#8217;t live in the era of giants. The greatest figures in their respective fields\u2014Michelangelo in sculpture, Shakespeare in drama, Homer or Dante in poetry, Raphael in painting, Beethoven in music\u2014all existed centuries, even millennia, ago. They are long gone<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2854,"featured_media":2273150,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mo_disable_npp":"","fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/www.washingtonexaminer.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/06\/Obit-2-1.webp","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2273149","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry"],"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/www.washingtonexaminer.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/06\/Obit-2-1.webp","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2273149","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2854"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2273149"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2273149\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2273150"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2273149"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2273149"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2273149"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}