Among students of the game of baseball, there’s widespread belief that Willie Mays was the greatest all-around player in the game’s history.
Among students of baseball, there has long been widespread belief that Willie Mays was the game’s greatest all-around player. That might come as a surprise to those who are casual fans, or not fans at all, when they read obituaries this week that describe Mays, who died Tuesday at the age of 93, as the greatest.
In the first game of the 1954 World Series, against a heavily favored Cleveland team, he caught a fly ball an estimated 425 feet from home plate, with his back to the plate, and then wheeled and threw the ball back to the infield in one motion to stop a runner from scoring. It is widely talked about as the greatest catch in the history of the game, even though Mays himself said he made numerous catches that were better.
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