Editor’s Note: From my personal card collection, (below), circa 1969. (And no, the crease at the top was not from the spokes of my bicycle. ) I first saw Willie play at Candlestick Park at the age of 12 (me, not him). A doubleheader, no less, against the Braves. Mays, Aaron, and McCovey on the field together. My brothers and I figured we’d see a lot of home runs that day. Alas, only one, by Clete Boyer and it didn’t get out of the yard, hitting the foul pole in left field. The Winds of Candlestick prevailed that day.
Vin Scully called Willie the greatest player that he ever called. From the Los Angeles Times:
His all-time favorite player was a longtime member of the hated Giants: Willie Mays.
Scully made the revelation to Mays when the two of them met, possibly for the first time, the night before Scully called his final Dodgers game after 67 years in the booth. A heartwarming video from that Oct. 1, 2016, interaction resurfaced on social media Tuesday after news broke that Mays died earlier that day at age 93.
“You’ve always been my favorite player, even though you wore the wrong uniform,” Scully told a laughing Mays.
Scully died in 2022 at the age of 94. Willie was 93.
Unveiled in Birmingham where he got his start with the Barons