D. Ross Cameron-USA TODAY Sports
Buster Posey’s 12-year career has featured three World Series titles, six All-Star Games, an MVP, Rookie of the Year and so many more honors that will, at the very least, make him a strong consideration for Cooperstown.
So he knows a thing or two about greatness. But even within idols there are different stratospheres.
“I have a signed picture from him,” Posey said Friday afternoon. “I don’t have too many sign pieces of memorabilia, but I do have a signed picture from Willie.”
Willie Mays, 90 years old on Thursday, is the type of Hall of Famer whom potential Hall of Famers idolize.
Oracle Park was ready to sing a belated happy birthday to the legend before the Giants’ series against the Padres began on Friday, his likeness and “Say Hey 50” inscribed into center field, the position he always will be synonymous with for his 22 years of wonder, perhaps the best player to ever step on the field.
His name will always be synonymous with greatness, and in San Francisco it also will be forever associated with charity and assistance. The Giants announced Thursday the creation of Willie Mays Scholars, a college prep and scholarship program to support Black youth living in the city.
For Giants players, the larger-than-life legend has been a resource, too. Posey’s career as a Giant has meant a career with Mays around.
“When you think the name Willie Mays, it’s almost like a mythological type of name. It has the same feeling as a Babe Ruth or a Lou Gehrig,” Posey said over Zoom. “All of us who’ve been here for a while and spent quite a good amount of time with him, he still likes to talk the game. He wants to try to get to know the guys that are on the team. Unfortunately, we haven’t seen him for a while the last couple of years. But when he’s around, it’s usually pretty entertaining.”
Mays has stayed away during the pandemic; he was returning to the park for the first time in a few years Friday, after an appearance in spring training in 2019 before the shutdown arrived. Gabe Kapler, when speaking Friday, had not had a chance to speak with him recently but hoped he would be able to.
That would have to follow the celebration that was set to be thrown in San Francisco. Mays’ statue was wearing a party hat, and the man himself was set to tour around the warning track edges of the park in an old-timey car.
Willie Mays is 90, and the festivities would match the occasion.