Even in the final years of Willie Mays’s baseball career, the great man slowed by nagging injuries, he was still magical for a 6- or 7- or 9-year-old to watch, a kinetic bundle of athletic prowess and joy, wrapped in a package of goodwill and human decency.
Mays, who died Tuesday at age 93, was to baseball what Louis Armstrong was to music: a groundbreaking, utterly original virtuoso who elevated and changed his craft forever.
See him just shy of age 39 rise well into the air and crash into the fence and teammate Bobby Bonds at the same time, then crumple motionless to the ground — but with the ball firmly, astonishingly ensconced in glove.
See him battling injuries after turning 40, leading the entire league in on-base percentage, and seemingly carrying his entire Giants team on his back to win its division. See him, finally a gimp-kneed 42 with the New York Mets, walking out…
