Say It Ain't So

We've lost the "Say Hey Kid"

My brother sent me the breaking news. Willie Mays, the “Say Hey Kid,” has died at the age of 93. 

I took a deep breath and held it for a moment. I felt my eyes begin to tear. I closed them and saw those iconic black-and-white images of youth, grace, and power: “The Catch.” The home runs. The stately older man. The smile. Now gone. 

I never met Willie Mays, never even saw him play. He had lived a long and fulfilling life. Why am I so gutted?

What I would give to have been able to sit in the stands on a sunny afternoon and watch Number 24 in his prime. But even in those grainy film clips, you can’t take your eyes off the shooting star — the strength, speed, and unparalleled joy of a man who could elevate a game into poetry. 

Mays defied hyperbole. 

My grandfather got to see Babe Ruth and Lou Gehrig. I would take Mays any day of the week and a doubleheader on Sunday. 

I can’t quite explain what he meant to me. But knowing I was living in a world that still contained arguably the greatest ballplayer who ever lived made me happy as a lover of baseball (especially a Giants fan) and, more broadly, as an American. 

I will miss that. 

We have lost another powerful connection to the past — a living reminder of the complexities and possibilities of this unlikely nation. Mays was a man of uncommon gifts and gritty determination who made it to the major leagues despite the racist societal and legal hurdles that were designed to disregard talent in men and women who looked like him. He redefined the possible on and off the diamond. He changed his era and all that followed.

Just recently, Major League Baseball realigned its record book to take into account the exploits of the stars of the Negro Leagues, where Mays played for a short stint before walking through the door cracked open by Jackie Robinson. This Thursday, he was supposed to be in Birmingham, Alabama — his home state — at a tribute game to the Negro Leagues between his old team, the Giants, and the St. Louis Cardinals. The game was at Rickwood Field, the oldest baseball park in the nation, where Mays had played for the famed Black Barons as a teenager. One can only imagine the import the game will take on now. 

We are living in a time when the very definition of who we are as a nation is under threat, when the darker chapters of our history are being whitewashed, and when goodness and decency are being turned into vicious punchlines. 

Mays stood for something better, more pure, more hopeful — even in the face of hate. I learned in a recent documentary that when he first moved to San Francisco in the 1950s he had wanted to buy a house near where I now live with my family. He was originally denied because he was Black, but he refused to back down. It was front-page news.

I guess what I am mourning more than anything is that there existed a man who embodied what is possible if you never lose your joy in life. He is gone. May his spirit live on and lead us all around the bases.