It is pointed out early on and often in the new HBO documentary “Say Hey, Willie Mays!” (“SHWM”) that the titular subject set and broke many Major League Baseball (MLB) records, but currently retains only three (most games played as a center fielder, most putouts by an outfielder, and most extra-inning home runs).
These are considerable achievements and in no way should be discounted or marginalized, but they aren’t the type of records that even the most seasoned baseball fans usually remember.
To put this in perspective, I, like many casual fans of the game, stopped following baseball at the start of the 1994–1995 players’ strike, yet I’m still able to name record holders in other higher-profile categories. Whether it is lifetime home runs, no-hitters, batting average, RBIs, stolen bases, or consecutive games played, I can rattle off their names without hesitation.
Willie of All Trades
Mays is one of only a handful of individuals ever referred to as “5-tool players”: those who excel at hitting for average, hitting for power, base running, throwing, and fielding. Again some perspective: His lifetime batting average was .302, and he had 3,283 hits, 660 home runs, 1,903 RBIs, and 338 stolen bases. None of those numbers are records, but no other player in history has as high cumulative marks in all of these categories.
An unlikely choice to direct a sports-based biographical documentary, Nelson George (“A Ballerina’s Tale,” “Good Hair”) mostly turns this into his and his subject’s advantage by devoting only half of the 98-minute running time to archival game footage.
Born in 1931, Mays grew up in Westfield, Alabama, with his single father, Cat, and two sisters. He lettered in three high school sports (baseball, football, basketball) and joined the Negro minor leagues before turning 18 or graduating high school.
The Missing Years
Like many players at the time, Mays was drafted to serve in the Korean War, but instead of placing him on the battlefield, the Army had him play exhibition games for two years (1952–1953). There’s no telling what his lifetime stats would have been had he played in MLB during this time.By all accounts, for seven years, Mays and his first wife, Margherite, loved living in New York, where he was regarded as the “King of Harlem.” Both were warmly embraced by a veritable who’s who list of people in New York’s arts, sports, and social and political circles.
When the Giants and their crosstown rivals, the Brooklyn Dodgers, pulled up stakes and relocated to California after the 1958 season, the Mays household looked forward to continuing their great life, but this was not the case.
After purchasing a home in a wealthy, all-white San Francisco neighborhood, Mays received his first taste of blatant racism when his home was vandalized and he was informed that he and his family weren’t welcome, although he was regarded by many of these same people as a local hero.
Too Much Barry
Director George includes interviews with TV and radio broadcasters and a few retired players, all of whom sing Mays’s praises, but the most telling and revealing (and not always in a good way) is the inordinate time spent with Barry Bonds.Barry is the son of Mays’s teammate Bobby Bonds and also is Mays’s godson, and he finished his career in San Francisco. He retired as the all-time MLB home run leader with 762, a record that many purists refute as he allegedly enhanced his performance with steroids for the latter half of his playing days. George never mentions this nor does Mays, who despite being stricken with glaucoma is still spry and engaging.
Guilty of this glaring elephant-in-the-room omission, George only adds insult to injury by spending most of the last half hour of the film giving us a recap of Barry’s career.
If Mays was upset by this, he never lets it show, giving further testimony to the class, grace, goodwill, and old-school affability that is sorely missing in today’s largely self-absorbed society.
