He was so much more than his numbers. Willie Mays was the best there ever was at baseball. And you don’t need numbers to tell you that.
Just watch the film clips that have been floating across our screens over the last couple of days. Just watch the joy he played with and the charisma he projected. Just watch him do anything and everything you’d want any baseball player to do — and do it better than pretty much anyone else.
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Just listen to people talk about him — the people who watched him, the people who knew him and especially the people who were lucky to qualify as both of the above.
You could learn so much about the late, great Willie Mays from all of that. But now that we have that out of the way, let’s talk about the numbers No. 24 compiled over 23 magical seasons, counting his time in the Negro Leagues at age 17. Here’s a word that sums up those numbers.
Whoa.
The numbers of Willie Mays are unlike any you’ll find on the Baseball Reference page of anyone else who ever played this sport. How can we dare to say that? Easy. Just read along — because it’s time to present a very special edition of Willie Mays by the Numbers. And why do we feel like we’ve only scratched the surface? (Author’s note: For the purpose of this column, we’re going to use his National League stats only.)
3,283 — Does 3,283 seem like a lot of hits? Let’s go with yes. It’s the eighth most in the last 100 years. It’s over 1,000 more than any active player. And then there’s this: It’s more hits than Mike Trout and Hank Greenberg have combined (3,276).
660 — Now add in 660 home runs. Try to comprehend it. That’s 124 more home runs than Mickey Mantle. It’s 253 more than Duke Snider. But maybe this little factoid drives it home: It’s also more home runs than George Brett and Darryl Strawberry hit combined (652).
338 — So Willie Mays was a power hitter, right? OK, right. But that’s a trick question, because alongside all those long balls, there was Willie the electrifying base runner, a man who stole 338 bases. Does that get your attention? Let’s hope so … since that’s more bases than Pete Rose and Rogers Hornsby stole put together (333) in 47 seasons in the big leagues.
40/40/200 — Hey, this is kind of fun. Willie never had a 40-homer, 40-steal, 200-hit season in the same year. But he sprinkled them onto his stat page in different years. And let’s just say you won’t find that on a whole lot of other guys’ pages.
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Willie had more 40-homer seasons (six) than Mike Schmidt and Reggie Jackson combined (five). He had more 40-steal seasons (one) than Jackie Robinson (none). And he had more 200-hit seasons (one) than Carl Yastrzemski (none). Incredible.
10 — On that note, what big departments did Willie Mays lead the league in? How about everything! He had seasons in which he led the league in all 10 of these categories:
Hits
Runs
Homers
Triples
Stolen Bases
Average
On Base
Slugging
Total Bases
Walks
Who else ever did that? That answer is … nobody. Obviously! We asked our friends from STATS Perform to double-check that. They could find only three players who even led their league in nine of those 10. That would be three nobodies named Lou Gehrig (all but stolen bases), Rogers Hornsby (all but stolen bases) and Ty Cobb (all but walks).
4 — So let’s keep traveling down that league-leader rabbit hole. Mays won four home run titles. That’s as many as Barry Bonds and Willie McCovey combined.
4 (again) — Oh, and Willie also won four stolen base titles. That’s more than Jackie Robinson and Ichiro Suzuki combined (three).
4/4 — All right, so who does this? No one does this. Who else in NL/AL history has ever won four home run titles and four stolen-base titles? That’s an amusing little question, if only because no one else is even close.
You know how many home run titles the other four-time stolen base champs in the modern era have won put together? That would be precisely one — by Ty Cobb, who did that as recently as 1909 (when he led the American League with nine).
155 — Let’s get all sabermetric for a minute. OK? You know what Willie Mays’ OPS+ was for his career? How about a cool 155. That means he was 55 percent more productive than the average hitter of his era — across a career spanning more than two decades.
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Why do we bring that up? Because we thought you might want to know that the list of active players who have never had even one qualifying season with a 155 OPS+ includes José Ramírez, Pete Alonso and Nolan Arenado. Among many, many others.
And we figured you would definitely want to know that the list of Hall of Fame players who never had even one qualifying season with a 155 OPS+ includes Kirby Puckett, Ryne Sandberg and a guy named Derek Jeter. Whoever they are.
10.0 — Burned out on those newfangled metrics yet? We hope not, because there’s more. Are we allowed to talk wins above replacement, considering WAR was not an actual thing in the era Willie Mays played in? Sure. Why the heck not — because Willie had six seasons with at least 10.0 WAR, according to Baseball Reference. Is that good? Yeah, that’s good. It’s also more than Mickey Mantle and Lou Gehrig combined (five).
9.0 — And what if we lower that bar to at least 9.0 WAR? Ha. Mays was still pretty good, it turns out, because he had nine seasons like that. Nine in just 13 years, in fact! Would you like us to tell you that’s more nine-win seasons than Mantle and Stan Musial combined? Oh, wait. We just did. You’re welcome.
10 — Does it seem nuts in retrospect that this man, Willie Mays, won “only” two MVP awards? Well, it will probably seem more nuts when we tell you that he led his league in WAR 10 times. That’s as many as Ted Williams, Henry Aaron and Lou Gehrig put together. That might seem impossible, but feel free to look it up.
124.1 — OK if we hit you with one final wins above replacement nugget — if only because WAR is the one metric that attempts to measure everything a player does on the field? So what’s the big deal about 124.1? That’s the astonishing number of wins above replacement that Mays piled up over just 13 seasons, from 1954-66.
Let’s wrap our brains around what that means. For one thing, it means Mays’ average season was a 9.5-win year — for 13 years. Does it tell you anything that the only active players who have had even one 9.5-win season are Mike Trout, Aaron Judge, Bryce Harper and Mookie Betts?
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OK, what about this: Only one other position player in the modern era has ever rolled up more WAR over a 13-year period than the 124.1 by Mays in his 13-year peak. That man was … yep, Babe Ruth (132.2, from 1919-31). You were expecting maybe Mario Mendoza?
2,744 — The most important quality in baseball — and life — is dependability. So we’re big fans around here of guys who seem as though they always find a way to play, no matter what is swirling around them. Can we agree that Willie Mays was one of those guys? We can, since he started more games in center field (2,744) than any center fielder in the modern era. Or, to put this another way, he started more games there than Kirby Puckett and Johnny Damon combined.
20 and 40 — Ready for one of our favorites? Willie Mays homered for the Giants at age 20. He also homered for the Giants at age 40. And that’s the sort of thing that only your basic franchise icon ever does. According to STATS, only five players have ever done that for any team:
Ted Williams
Henry Aaron
Stan Musial
George Brett
Willie Mays
But only three of those men hit double-digit homers for the same team at 20 and 40: How about this trifecta: Williams, Mays and Aaron. This feat gets more fun every time we look at it.
15 — Maybe you know that Mays played in an amazing 24 All-Star Games. That’s tied with Musial and Aaron for the most in history. Now here’s what you don’t know: He got at least one hit in 15 of those All-Star Games — and nobody else has ever done that, because of course they haven’t. The only other player with more than 11 is Musial (with 14).
6 — But Mays also got at least two hits in six different All-Star Games. Yep, that’s also a record. Maybe this puts that in perspective: Only one active player even has more than one multi-hit All-Star Game — José Ramírez (with two).
24 — Do we even have to explain this one? Willie Mays didn’t just wear No. 24. He pretty much patented No. 24. When you think of that number, you think of him. Or at least you should. And those 156.1 wins above replacement he piled up while wearing it aren’t merely the most in history by a No. 24. They’re 45 more than the guy who’s in second place — a fellow named Rickey Henderson, who was inspired to wear No. 24 by, you guessed it, Willie Mays.
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16 — Finally, how about this cool stat that was dug up by our friends at the Society for American Baseball Research? Here come all the innings in which Willie Mays hit a home run:
First
Second
Third
Fourth
Fifth
Sixth
Seventh
Eighth
Ninth
10th
11th
12th
13th
14th
15th
16th
Yes, you read that right. He homered at least once in every inning, from the first through the 16th. He hit 123 in the first inning. He hit only one in the 16th — but it was maybe the most famous regular-season home run he ever hit, to break up a legendary 0-0, 16-inning pitchers’ duel between Warren Spahn and Juan Marichal on July 2, 1963.
But why did it wind up in this column? Because you know how many players have ever hit a home run in every one of the first 16 innings? Exactly one. The great Willie Mays.
All right. Just one more thing. It isn’t often that a man finishes his career with 660 homers, over 3,200 hits, more than 300 steals, two MVP trophies and 12 Gold Glove awards and we can still look at his life and times and ask: What if?
What if he hadn’t gone off to serve his country in Korea and lost nearly two full seasons of his career?
What if he hadn’t had to play so much of his career at a hitter’s nightmare like Candlestick Park?
What if the Gold Glove Award had been around for his whole career, instead of being invented in his seventh year with the Giants?
What if MVP voters in the 1950s and ’60s had voted more like MVP voters vote today?
How many MVP awards would Willie Mays have won then? How many more Gold Glove awards would have been displayed in his trophy room?
How many more hits and homers would have padded his already remarkable totals? How likely is it that he would have zoomed past Babe Ruth’s 714 home runs and owned the most romantic record in sports?
It’s surreal that we just unfurled all the numbers he did compile … yet it’s still reasonable to ask that question. But that’s what the legend of Willie Mays is all about. The numbers blow your mind — and there’s still so much more to swirl around your brain.
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(Top photo of Willie Mays holding four baseballs after hitting four homers in a game against the Milwaukee Braves in 1961: Associated Press)