SF Giants History: Story from Willie Mays' final hours will make you tear up

SF Giants legend Willie Mays passed away in the summer of 2024, but his presence still looms large in the history of the Giants and major league baseball. A story from his final hours is a poignant reminder of how he and baseball are inextricably linked.

John Shea of the San Francisco Standard, who wrote a phenomenal book several years ago about, and with, Willie Mays that I would highly recommend, appeared on the Splash Hit Territory podcast and shared a very beautiful story he heard about Mays before his passing.

Powerful Willie Mays remembrance will make Giants fans emotional

Shea shared the following anecdote on the podcast which can be watched in full here:

"One of the most emotional stories I've been told about those final hours is when the doctor came in to draw blood, he couldn't get a grip, they couldn't find a vein...Rene Anderson [Mays' longtime friend] gives Willie Mays the one thing that he's had in his hand a million times and that's a baseball...It's the last baseball Willie ever gripped."

Stories like that are what keep the legend of baseball alive. Over the holidays on MLB Network they play Ken Burns' incredible Baseball documentary series which is filled with stories like that about the greats of the game. Sure, maybe some aren't true or the truth is stretched a bit but that is part of the beauty as well, keeping that mystic spirit of the game going from a bygone era.

It is so fitting that Mays held a baseball in those final hours before he passed away. One cannot tell the story of baseball without talking about Mays and the way he played the game. He was a five-tool player before that was even a part of the parlance and he was arguably the greatest to ever play the game.

Plus, he did it all with a fun-loving spirit that made him impossible not to cheer for. The fact that he helped inaugurate the Giants after their move to San Francisco no doubt is a huge part of why baseball stuck in the City by the Bay.

While I never got to see Mays play myself, my Grandpa did and the Say Hey Kid was his favorite player. That is what made it even more emotional for me when I heard the news that Mays had passed away because I was at a Giants vs. Chicago Cubs game at Wrigley Field in June of 2024 when the news was announced and a moment of silence was held that was more a moment of recognition as fans clapped in acknowledgment of the greatness that Mays displayed in his career.

Giants broadcaster David Flemming's choked up on-air reaction to the news was symbolic as even younger people who did not see Mays at his peak were moved by his passing sheerly by dint of his larger-than-life legend and the stories of his greatness.

As I sat there in Wrigley Field and thought about how I was at one of two active big league stadiums where Mays actually played in his career, I looked out to center field and imagined Mays tracking down a fly ball with a signature basket catch. My eyes drifted to home plate and I imagined him thrashing a line drive into the gap.

Baseball provides that connective tissue that binds generations unknowingly and taps into a shared history that one can easily forget about but that is always there to be felt and appreciated.

Knowing that somewhere far away, Mays had gripped a baseball before he passed away feels so right and fitting because Willie Mays was and always will be baseball. He may very well be the finest player to ever grip that piece of cowhide and stitch.