By Gino Blefari

Good evening from the shores of Cabo San Lucas, where I’m soaking up the vibrant spirit and stunning vistas of Mexico. This week, I’ve experienced two intense emotions—pure happiness and joy, and another—profound sadness.

The happiness and joy is why I am here in Mexico—celebrating the wedding of a dear friend. The sadness came earlier this week when I learned about the passing of my idol, Willie Mays.

Read more: Remembering My Idol—Willie Mays 

The world-famous baseball player had such a big impact on me during my childhood, and now, during my adult life. His legacy and story taught me so much—to always be the hardest working player on the field, and to always maintain a child-like enthusiasm. 

As a tribute to Wille, I wanted to share two articles I have previously written. I hope that you enjoy them as much as I did writing them and that you cherish his story and the lessons he shared as much as I do. 

THOUGHTS ON LEADERSHIP: A TRIBUTE TO WILLIE MAYS

I have a list of 18 connecting questions that help strengthen team chemistry and allow us to know each other better. One of those questions is, “Who from your childhood had the biggest impact on you?” My answer is always my dad and my mom (naturally) but if I had to pick one other person it is my all-time favorite baseball player, Willie Mays. So, to celebrate Black History Month and highlight Black leaders, I’d like to share a little bit about my hero, Willie Mays.

He was born on May 6, 1931, in West Field, Alabama. His father had been a legendary semi-pro player and trained him to play baseball since before he could walk. Willie Mays first made his mark as a member of the Chattanooga Choo-Choos and later began his baseball career—still just a teenager—playing for the Birmingham Black Barons in 1948. He was only 19 years old when he signed with the New York Giants in 1951.

Willie Mays was the kind of ballplayer who could do everything. He could run, throw, hit with power and field. He had every tool of a five-star player. Here are a few incredible stats about his career: His lifetime batting average was .302. He played Major League Baseball for 22 seasons and was named to 24 All-Star games. MLB player Ted Williams once said, “They invented the All-Star Game for Willie Mays.”

Willie Mays was the very first player in the league to join the exclusive 30-30 Club—batters who achieved 30 home runs and 30 stolen bases in a single season. For eight years in a row, he drove in more than 100 runs and finished his career with 660 home runs. At the time of his retirement, he had hit more home runs than anyone except Hank Aaron and Babe Ruth. In the outfield, he recorded 7,095 putouts, the most in Major League history. According to the New York Yankees great Joe DiMaggio (Joltin’ Joe), Mays had the greatest throwing arm he had ever seen.

There’s one word to describe the way Willie Mays played the game of baseball: excitement. Anyone who saw him on the field felt it because he not only just played that well, it was so evident that he loved what he did more than anyone else. (He once said, “It was such a beautiful game that I just wanted to play it forever.”)

He was more “into” the game than any other player, too. A tremendously focused player every time he stepped on the field or up to bat.

Watching Willie Mays play, I’ll always remember the way he’d run the bases. First, a slam into the outfield and next, he’d skid around second base just like one of the Olympic skiers at the Winter Games but as he ran, you knew he was taking note of every little thing happening on the field. He was at once focused on the task in front of him and the entire game. His teammates and opponents would often comment just how much he knew about the game. MLB player Monte Irvin said, “I think anybody who saw him will tell you that Willie Mays was the greatest player who ever lived.”

Though he set many records, Willie Mays was not the first Black Major League ball player (1951). On April 15, 1947, Jackie Robinson broke decades of what was called the “color line” when he appeared on the field to play for the National League Brooklyn Dodgers.

Even if he wasn’t first, and despite the overwhelming admiration people had for his abilities, work ethic and talent, there were still many obstacles to overcome. Here’s a quote from author George Will that perfectly sums up the scenario:

Willie Mays was not the first black ballplayer, but he had his own barrier to break through—a kind of gentle, good-natured racism, but racism, nonetheless. If you remember when he came up, people would say, “Oh, what an instinctive ballplayer he is. What a natural ballplayer he is. What childlike enthusiasm he has!” Well, thirty years on, we can hear with our better-trained ears, the racism in that. [Was Mays] wonderfully gifted? Yes. Great natural ballplayer? Yes. But nobody—nobody—got to the major leagues on natural gifts without an awful lot of refining work.

He was an instinctive ballplayer, but he was also a tremendously smart ballplayer. As a rookie, he’d get to second base, watch two batters go up to the plate, and he’d go back to the dugout, having stolen the signs and decoded the sequence. He’d know the indicator signs from the other signs. Natural ballplayer? Sure. Hardest-working ballplayer you ever saw.

You know in football there’s an iconic play from Dwight Clark called “The Catch”? Well in baseball, there’s an iconic play with Willie Mays called “The Catch.” Let me set the stage for you on that. I was not born yet but I have watched it hundreds of times …

On Sept. 29, 1954, Willie Mays of the New York Giants was facing the Cleveland Indians. It was the World Series, and it was being played at the Polo Grounds in Upper Manhattan. What happened during that epic day is something baseball fans memorialize and will never, ever forget.

It’s the top of the 8th and Cleveland is up. The score is tied 2-2. Don Little, pitching from the stretch, Vic Wertz leans in, Willie Mays waits in center.

Here’s a transcript of the call from Russ Hodges in 1954 of “The Catch”:

There’s a long drive, way back in center field, way back … back … back … it’s … it’s … (he’s about to say off the wall but instead he says …) it’s CAUGHT! Willie Mays just brought the crowd to its feet with a catch, which must have been an optical illusion to many people.

Here’s what Bob Costas said about the Catch:

“It was more than just a great catch; it was a catch that no one had even seen before. When that ball left Wertz’ bat, and this is one of the great things about baseball. A ball’s hit into the gap. How good is the outfielder’s arm? Where is the cutoff man? A quick look and a glance, the runners between first and second, how fast is that runner? How many outs? Should he try for third? Is his history that he’s daring? Will he try for third? What is the third base coach doing?”

It was all overwhelming, but Willie Mays took it in within the span of a few seconds to understand his best possible outcome in this difficult scenario – and did it flawlessly countless times. Here’s how Bob Costas described the Catch:

When the ball left Wertz’ bat, in the massive Polo Grounds, where it was headed, where Mays was standing, there was only one possibility. Could he get to it before it was an inside the park home run? Could he hold it to a triple? Catching it was out of the question and Willie Mays turned and ran to a place, where no one could go to get that ball, starting where he started with the ball hit as it was hit. So, it was more than just a great acrobatic play, it was a play that until that point was outside the realm of possibility in baseball.

And here’s a little-known piece of trivia about that day: In the 8th inning, they brought in the left-hander Don Little to pitch to left-hand-batting Vic Wertz. Little relieved Sal Maglie and was sent in to pitch to one batter only: Wertz. As the story goes, Wertz hits the ball over 450 feet and Mays makes the Catch. Right-hander Marv Grissom is then waved in by manager Leo Durocher. Don Little hands the ball to Grissom and says straight-faced but in a moment of humor, “Well, I got my man.” Later in the game, Mays hit a triple to the exact same spot where he caught Wertz’ long drive and a teammate said, “The only player that could have caught it, hit it.”

A few years back I got Dwight Clark and Willie Mays together to commemorate “The Catch” and “The Catch.” It was a celebration of what in my opinion is the greatest catch in football and the greatest catch in baseball by my two all-time favorite players.

So, what’s the message? Well, here’s the message: We can all learn from Willie Mays to have a greater understanding of whatever our business is, always be the hardest working player on the field and always maintain that child-like enthusiasm. Thank you, Willie. 

THOUGHTS ON LEADERSHIP: WILLIE AND BILLY (AN UNEXPECTED STORY YOU’LL WANT TO READ)

Whenever I write these posts, I always receive incredible replies but when the last post about Willie Mays, written in celebration of Black History Month, was sent into the world, I received a response from William “Billy” Knox at Berkshire Hathaway HomeServices California Properties that I just had to share.

It was June 1961. A 10-year-old Billy was staying at his neighbor’s house, five blocks down from his own.

“Cmon,” Billy said to his friend, Bobby. “Let’s get Willie’s autograph.”

He was of course, referring to the great Willie Mays, who just so happened to be temporarily staying at a home nearby while his custom-built mansion in Atherton—a small town in San Mateo County, California—was being built.

What happened next? Billy and Bobby decided it would be totally fine (and absolutely fun) to ring the doorbell of a temporary home belonging to a living legend, so they did it.

“We were just two kids going to the Giants game the next day,” Billy writes.

Willie’s wife, Marguerite, answered the door—in amazing $500 gold shoes—and said Willie wasn’t home but that the boys could come back tomorrow for an autograph.

“And you bet we did,” Billy says.

At 9 a.m. the next day, Billy and Bobby waited as patiently as two young kids about to meet their hero could, on the stoop of the Mays’ home for the now-promised autograph. Finally, Willie emerged, dressed in a yellow cardigan and brown slacks, sauntering with characteristic cool toward his lime-green Cadillac convertible. (“The one with those famous fins,” Billy describes.)

Sensing his opening, Billy asks for the autograph with more casual reserve than you’d expect from a 10-year-old baseball enthusiast and Willie agrees. The two boys follow him—“like puppies”—to his car when, as Billy explains, “a bolt of chutzpah hit me.”

He told Willie they had tickets to the game that day and wondered if he could give them a ride. Could you even imagine? Two children arriving at the Giants game in the Caddy of the team’s star player and arguably, the best player to ever set foot on the baseball field?

“Hop in the front, guys,” Willie says in a dreams-really-do-come-true moment for the two young fans.

But as soon as the boys got into the car, they realized they were missing a crucial element to the game: their tickets.

Willie asked where they lived and with the calm of an outfielder waiting to catch a long drive way back in center field, he drove the boys to Bobby’s house to retrieve the tickets.

Here’s how Billy describes what happened next: “Then the greatest hitter in the history of the game left his motor idling and waited patiently while we tore up the stairs to Bobby’s room to retrieve the tickets.”

So, they get the tickets and return to Willie’s car, this time traveling just one block before more trouble brews in the inning.

They forgot their lunch.

Without cell phones to instantly get in touch, they were worried their families would think something happened to them. (And would probably never guess they were simply riding in the lime-green Cadillac of Willie Mays to see him play that day.)

Willie goes back (again) and Billy writes: “To this day, I can still see my mom standing at our dining room picture window with her hands on her hips, mouth ajar, as the white top convertible sped off.”

What. A. Play.

But the inning wasn’t over yet. Bobby and Billy had planned to meet Billy’s 13-year-old brother and his friend at the game. When they all convened in their section, Billy told them Willie Mays drove them to Candlestick Park. Of course, the boys were skeptical— Who wouldn’t be?—but Billy had a plan. After the game ended, the baseball crew went to the lot where Willie was standing, ready to depart after yet another epic day of baseball. Willie Mays spotted Billy and pointed to his car. So, of course the boys did the next logical thing any baseball fan would do: They got into the back seat and told Billy’s brother and his friend to crouch down low, hidden from sight.

When Willie got into his car, he spotted the extra boys and asked who they were. Billy said, “Uh, uh, um, Willie, these are my brothers, and they were at the game and uh, we’re going back to my house. You wouldn’t mind giving them a ride too, would you?”

What could Willie say?

And that’s the story of how four 10- and 13-year-old boys from Northern California spent a day with Willie Mays. Says Billy: “One of my fondest memories of that ride home was viewing my brother’s friend, slipping his youthful hand into Willie’s legendary glove as it lay perched on the edge of the back seat.”

So, what’s the message? In this case, it’s that if you find yourself like William “Billy” Knox did, living a few doors down from your childhood hero, always ask him for a ride.