San Francisco Giants: Top 30 players of all-time
. . . Willie Mays . 1. 40
NY/SF Giants best players all-time: No. 1-Willie Mays
147.8 WAR
If you expected anyone different, then you aren’t a real baseball fan.
Arguably the best overall player to ever play the game, Willie Mays was a 24-time All-Star (yes, the same amount as his jersey number) including a span of time when he made 19 consecutive All-Star appearances.
He did get that sacred World Series championship in 1954 along with winning the National League MVP twice (1954, 1965), the NL Rookie of the Year in 1951, the Roberto Clemente award in 1972, 12 Gold Gloves in 12 consecutive seasons (1957-1968), the 1954 NL batting champion, the NL home run title four times (1955, 1962, 1964, 1965), and was a four-time NL stolen base champion (1956-1959).
The legendary highlight of his career was in Game 1 of the 1954 World Series at the Polo Grounds when he made the over the shoulder grab to rob Vic Wertz of at least a triple. As I mentioned the Giants wound up winning that World Series, and it would be the team’s final championship while based in New York.
In April of 1961, Willie Mays once hit four home runs in a single game while he drove in eight runs at Milwaukee County Stadium. Mays said that the night before, he got sick eating spareribs so he wasn’t even sure that he would have played the following day.
Mays was also part of the 16 inning affair between Warren Spahn and Juan Marichal on July 2, 1963. Both starters threw shutouts through 15 innings and then Mays ended it with a walk-off home run in the bottom of the 16th to win it 1-0.
Mays was traded to the New York Mets in May of 1972 due to the Giants’ financial struggles and he would finish his career there in 1973.
On January 23, 1979, “The Say Hey Kid” was inducted into Cooperstown after receiving more than 94 percent of the vote. I don’t know how anyone couldn’t vote for Mays but I’m sure there were many biased people that still weren’t in favor of African-Americans at the time. New York Daily News columnist Dick Young once wrote, “If Jesus Christ were to show up with his old baseball glove, some guys wouldn’t vote for him.”
In my opinion and many others as well, Willie Mays is the best five-tool player to ever play the game of baseball and so he is by far the best Giants player ever.