AP, file
New York Giants’ Willie Mays poses for a photo during baseball spring training in 1972. Mays, the electrifying “Say Hey Kid” whose singular combination of talent, drive and exuberance made him one of baseball’s greatest and most beloved players, has died. He was 93. Mays’ family and the San Francisco Giants jointly announced Tuesday night, June 18, 2024, he had “passed away peacefully” Tuesday afternoon surrounded by loved ones.
Saturday, June 22, 2024 | 2 a.m.
View more of the Sun's opinion section
Greatest living.
Let it go. Let the phrase go. I’ll never use it again. None of us should.
It’s a lazy phrase, anyway. An easy out. An easy way to dodge the debate. To duck the declaration. To dismiss the definitive.
I’m not sure when Willie Mays was knighted with the phrase. Or why.
Baseball historians may know. Or maybe the most fanatic of Giants fans know — maybe those who witnessed his greatness in living color. Who saw him patrol the massive centerfield of New York’s Polo Grounds like it was a playground sandbox.
I certainly don’t know.
It couldn’t have had anything to do with the death of Babe Ruth, baseball’s greatest — period — for a legion of fans. Mays was still a dynamic, budding teenager with the Birmingham Black Barons at Rickwood Field when Ruth died on Aug. 16, 1948. It would be almost another three years before the kid baseball came to adoringly call Say Hey would sign a Major League Baseball contract and debut with the New York Giants, the pre-incarnation of San Francisco’s Giants.
At Ruth’s passing, Mays wasn’t yet even on the greatest living lineup card.
In 2015, Major League Baseball honored Mays as a “Greatest Living Player” at its 86th All-Star Game in Cincinnati. Honored him and three other former greats — Hank Aaron, Sandy Koufax and Johnny Bench — with the phrase that day based on 25 million fan votes.
Before the game, the four men walked to the mound arm-in-arm, striding under a seismic ovation.
Aaron died on Jan. 22, 2021. Koufax and Bench are still alive. But no one would dare.
Let it go. Let the phrase go.
Surely the phrase was used to describe Mays before that night. Seems I’ve heard it most of my life.
It should never be used again, though now.
Mays died Tuesday afternoon, comfortably and quietly, the San Francisco Giants shared. He was home. He is home.
Earlier this month, I shared that Mays was “unlikely” to be able to make the trip to Birmingham for this week’s MLB tribute to the Negro leagues.
I was wrong. Willie Mays was in Birmingham this week, at the ballpark a rope of a relay-throw from the Westfield, Alabama neighborhood where he was raised (A steel mill town, Westfield doesn’t exist anymore). He was standing at Rickwood Field with 60 or so others who brought greatness to the Negro Leagues — a greatness finally recognized and embraced by MLB. By “major leagues” that now include seven Negro Baseball Leagues. Finally.
He was there just as he was supposed to be. Just as we wanted him to be. He was home.
On Tuesday evening, legendary baseball broadcaster (and fan) Bob Costas was calling the game between the New York Yankees and Baltimore Orioles for TBS. He knew the news before it was publicly released. “I held off,” he told me later, “but the last three or four innings was half talking about what was happening and half talking about Willie.”
A few weeks ago, Costas said someone close to Mays shared that his health was waning. “‘He can barely get out of bed,’” Costas was told. “He said, ‘Some days he’s communicative, some days, he’s not.’ I knew that the end was near.”
We talked about the greatest.
“Everyone has their place,” he said. “Name the great players from our youth. (Ted) Williams doesn’t negate (Stan) Musial, who doesn’t negate (Joe) DiMaggio. (Hank) Aaron has a place as the most significant player since Jackie Robinson, considering what he had to go through and what it represented when he passed (Babe) Ruth. (Mickey) Mantle is the star-crossed Roy Hobbs. Each of them has their own story. Statistically, (Roberto) Clemente doesn’t match up, but he dies a hero and was the first great Hispanic player. He has a mantle and place in mythology no one can duplicate.
“All of these guys have their distinctive place, but Willie’s the best of them all, to be honest — just as a ballplayer, the best of all.”
Greatest. Nothing else need be said. Ever.
Instead, Say Hey, kid. Say, bye.
Roy Johnson is a columnist for AL.com, a member of the National Association of Black Journalists Hall of Fame, Edward R. Murrow Award winner and a Pulitzer Prize finalist for commentary.
