NO SWAMI need peer into a crystal ball to come up with the prediction that Willie Mays, the Giants’ center fielder, will be the most exciting player to watch in 1955.  You could find that out by looking into a porcelain doorknob or a china egg.  On the strength of 306 major-league games – all Willie has played in his career to date – many experienced baseball figures already are saying he’s the greatest ballplayer they’ve ever seen.

Actually, nobody yet knows how good Willie really is, including Willie.  Still a few months short of his twenty-fourth birthday, with his Army service behind him, he has by no means reached his peak years. “If Willie can keep his average at .325 or better for the next five years, then he’s got to be the best we’ve ever,” Leo Durocher, his boss, declared recently.  “I say he’s the best I’ve ever seen right now.  I’ll take him over Musial and I would even if they were the same age.” Making allowances for Manager Durocher’s understandable enthusiasm for his star, his remarks are worth taking seriously.  Leo played with Babe Ruth and against Ty Cobb and has been looking at big-leaguers since 1928.

Gregory Peck may have gotten the cover, but Willie Mays was the bigger story.

“To be great in baseball, you have to be great in five things,” said Leo.  “You must be able to hit, to hit with power, to run, to throw and to field.  Willie can do them all better than anybody today.”

Not the least of Mays’s value is that some of his spark and fire seems to rub off on the rest of the club.  “It electrifies ‘em,” according to Durocher, “and does something to the whole club, even to an old pro like Alvin Dark.”

No player – not Cobb or Ruth, Joe DiMaggio or Ted Williams – ever achieved the honors in his first full big-league season which fell to Mays in 1954.  He was the leading hitter in the majors with a .345 average, and the leading slugger with a percentage of .667.  He hit 41 home runs.  He was voted the Most Valuable Player in the National League – and the MVP title is not easily won.  Joe DiMaggio played four years before he achieved it; Ted Williams for five.

Some weeks ago Ben Geraghty, who manages Jacksonville, Florida, for the Milwaukee organization, make a flying trip to New York and caught the official 1954 World Series movies, in which Mays is the star, with the Giants and Indians acting as supporting players.  A room filled with baseball notables buzzed and raved about Willie’s potentials when the film ended.

“I’ve been in baseball for nearly twenty years,” said Geraghty, “and, outside of a cup of coffee with the Dodgers and a ham sandwich with the Braves, all of my time has been in the minors.  But I still have to say that Mays is the best ballplayer I’ve ever seen.
 

Scoring from First on a Scratch Hit

Geraghty, who managed Caguas in the Puerto Rican winter league and watched Mays perform there with Santurce, told of a play in which Willie scored from first on a ball which hit the shortstop’s glove and trickled a few feet behind him.  The shortstop loafed recovering the ball and Mays simply didn’t stop running.

“I never say anything like it,” concluded Ben.

“I never say anybody like Mays,” amended the reporter.  “I was a great Frankie Frisch booster and then a great Joe DiMaggio man, but as of now I have to say Mays is number one.”

DiMaggio himself, asked recently whom he considered the game’s top player today, promptly replied: “Willie Mays, without a question.”

It’s impossible that at this stage of Willie’s career to assay his potential.  Last year he dominated the Giants, the National League and the World Series.  His power, his speed, his fielding and his throwing put him far ahead of the rest of the field.  He excelled in each and excelled in all.

To see Mays charge a groundball like a shortstop and rifle it back into the infield is a thrill in itself, comparable to watching any of his amazing catches or his long drives.  Willie has the great physical co-ordination which is given only to the greatest of stars.  He could play in the infield as well as in the outfield, and probably would be superlative in any sport he played.  With his quick hands and lightening reflexes, Willie would have made a great boxer, for example.

I myself saw Cobb play and traveled with Ruth.  Mays has the extra something that distinguished those two stars, the personal magnetism which pulls fans into ball parks.  Willie has the boundless enthusiasm of a romping kid for the sport which is his profession.  He plays the game by instinct and plays it as if it were especially devised for his benefit.  He’s the greatest player in the game today, and there is no reason why he shouldn’t go on to be the greatest that ever played the game.

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