Willie Mays, ‘Poetry on the Diamond’

To the Editor:

Re “Willie Mays, 1931-2024: Forceful, Graceful, Joyful Gem on the Diamond” (obituary, front page, June 20):

I was 10 when the Giants moved from New York to San Francisco. From the very first day I watched Willie Mays play ball in Seals Stadium, I was hooked. By the time I graduated from high school in 1966, I proudly displayed 15 framed pictures of the Say Hey Kid on my bedroom walls.

No one played baseball like Willie. His love of the game was infectious. My friends and I routinely pored over The San Francisco Chronicle’s Sporting Green and quoted his stats all day long.

Willie wasn’t just a terrific fielder; he had blazing speed and a cannon for an arm. My guess is if he hadn’t been forced to stand in center all those cold, windy nights at Candlestick Park, he easily would have hit more than 700 home runs (he had 660 as it was).

Today’s stars, like Shohei Ohtani, Mike Trout and Aaron Judge, are truly talented players, but they don’t play baseball the way Willie did. A 24-time All-Star and a two-time M.V.P., the Say Hey Kid was my idol.

I wish my sons, who are 44 and 32, could have seen him play. If they had, they would know why I tell everyone that Willie was “poetry on the diamond.” For this 75-year-old baseball fan, there will never be another Willie Mays, the greatest player of his, and my, generation.

Denny Freidenrich
Laguna Beach, Calif.

To the Editor:

In the 1950s my friend Dave and I played sandlot baseball almost every day of the summer in a field close to my house. He was always Mickey Mantle, and I was always Willie Mays. He’d pretend to switch hit, which he couldn’t do, and I’d try to make basket catches, which I couldn’t do. We’d argue endlessly over who was better, Mickey or Willie.