Willie Mays was the last of the finest, and perhaps the greatest, of the quartet of players who made up the royal court of baseball for more than 50 years.
Roberto Clemente left us early, courageously, when he died in a plane crash off the coast of his native Puerto Rico on New Year’s Eve 1972 on a mercy mission to deliver supplies to Nicaraguan earthquake victims.
We were lucky to have the remaining trio — Mays, Hank Aaron and Frank Robinson — for decades to hear their stories and admire their regal presence.
Robinson passed in 2021. Aaron two years later. Each of them — Aaron, Robinson, Clemente and Mays — had been awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom.
On Monday, the last of the four, Mays, died at the age of 93 — and a nation mourned.
The grief is not just about the death of a baseball superstar — a legend who transcended his sport.
America grieves the passing of an era when you could believe in the greatness you witnessed. Trust in the truthfulness of the tales you were told. There was nothing fraudulent about these men, on or off the field.
Now that court of baseball royalty gets more complicated. Less affirming. Less affectionate.
Who takes the crown now as the greatest living baseball player? That would appear to be Ken Griffey Jr., who was as close to Mays in talent and production as any ballplayer alive.
“I’m just grateful and thankful that I was able to spend the time I had with him because he is a true giant,” Griffey said.
After that, though, things get messy.
Barry Bonds — Mays’ godson — forfeited his place among baseball royalty when he opted to take “the cream and the clear” that he testified to under oath in grand jury testimony.
Alex Rodriguez? It would be blasphemous to even consider the place of this steroid cheat among these great players. Who’s next? Mike Schmidt? Johnny Bench?
None of them are Willie Mays.
He was a 24-time All-Star, named ceremoniously near the end of his career because it seemed foolish to have an All-Star Game and not have Mays there.
He may have been the ultimate five-tool player, so much so they should simply change the term to a Willie Mays player — 660 career home runs and led the National League in home runs four times.
He drove in 1,909 runs, 3,293 hits, a career .302 batting average, 339 stolen bases (he led the National League in stolen bases four times) and won the Gold Glove 12 times for his legendary center field play, forever etched in Americana lore by his over-the-shoulder catch at the cavernous Polo Grounds in New York in the 1954 World Series.
New York was where Mays became a larger-than-life figure, more than a ballplayer, breaking in with the Giants in 1951 when the Big Apple and its three major league teams were the center of the baseball universe.
Mays shared the center field spotlight with two other Hall of Fame centerfielders — Mickey Mantle with the Yankees and Duke Snider with the Dodgers.
The arguments about who was the best center fielder would later inspire the popular song “Talkin’ Baseball” (also known as “Willie, Mickey and the Duke,” by Terry Cashman, in 1981).
That’s 24 years after the Giants and Dodgers left New York for the West Coast.
Mays was also more beloved in New York, where he won one of his two Most Valuable Player awards in 1954 while leading the Giants to a World Series championship. After the series catch, the most celebrated photo of Mays is of him playing stickball with kids on the streets of the Bronx. He was more celebrated in San Francisco after he stopped playing. Fans there embraced Hall of Famer Willie McCovey, who broke in with the Giants in San Francisco in 1959 and was considered their homegrown superstar.
But he, too, was not Willie Mays. Maybe no one else has been.
Is Mays the greatest player in the history of the game? Many would argue it’s a debate between him and Babe Ruth.
But now that title is much more complicated today than it was weeks ago, when baseball introduced Negro League statistics into the official record books. Or do we really want to say Mays was a greater player than Josh Gibson?
What did Frank Robinson believe about Willie Mays? “He’s as good as you want him to be,” he said. “You can’t exaggerate how great he was.”
The greatest? How about the king of the royal court of baseball?
⦁ You can hear Thom Loverro on The Kevin Sheehan Show podcast.
• Thom Loverro can be reached at tloverro@washingtontimes.com.
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