Willie Mays, Legend or Statistic

On Tuesday, 18 June 2024, baseball marked the passing of one of its greats. Willie Mays, once midfielder to the Giants, passed away at age 93. There is no question as to Mays contribution in baseball, considered the greatest all-rounder player, Mays rightfully has a place in the Hall of Fame. However, I wish to examine how Mays will be truly remembered. Of course how we remember someone is an individual thing, but news and headlines can have an effect on our interpretation. Take the front pages of USA Today (https://frontpages.freedomforum.org/newspapers/usat-USA_Today) and The New York Times (https://frontpages.freedomforum.org/newspapers/ny_nyt-The_New_York_Times), both of these papers address Mays passing, but just in a slightly different manner. While both make a point of stating Mays' amazing career, they differ in the language. USA Today talks of how Mays will be remembered as the 'Say Hey Kid' and writes of his baseball feats in more detail when compared to The New York Times, which opts to summarize Mays base with a general rounding of his career's statistics. "He hit 660 career home runs and had 3,293 hits and a .301 batting average." It's clear that both papers speak of Mays as a legend, but it could be interpreted that when the figures and numbers are brought in to measure a player's impact in the sport, their individuality is diminished overall as to their impact as a person, as well as a player. Arguing that point, a hardcore baseball fan could say that Mays stats speak for themselves and prove with figures alone how Mays was a legend.

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