My father taught me everything I needed to know about Willie Mays, the most complete ballplayer ever

The numbers tell a fantastic story about Willie Mays, but if you truly want to know how great the ‘Say Hey Kid’ was, you had to watch him play.

When people ask me how good of a player Willie Mays was, I give them a perhaps odd answer. The San Francisco Giants basically gave Mays to the New York Mets for practically nothing in 1972, and a well past his prime 41-year-old Mays was the best overall hitter – as measured by his ability to get on base and hit for power – on that solid Mets squad. Of course, the more normal way to know how good Mays was is that he remains, statistically, the best player who played his entire career in the last century and is in the Hall of Fame. But if you truly want to know how great Mays was? You had to watch him play. I couldn’t help thinking of my Father when I learned of Mays’ passing last night on “The Source.” I mentioned him almost immediately. You see, my Father watched Mays play when he came up as a rookie for the New York Giants in 1951. He considered Mays the best player he ever saw from the moment he laid eyes on him in that inaugural year. Mays supercharged that ‘51 Giants squad and helped them overcome a 13.5-game deficit in mid-August to win the NL pennant over their crosstown rivals, the Brooklyn Dodgers, thanks to the Shot Heard ‘Round the World. It remains, in my opinion, the greatest comeback in baseball history. Mays won Rookie of the Year that season.