When I first conceived of my current writing project, I chose the 1970s for a couple of distinct reasons. The first was that it was the decade where baseball truly mattered to me, more than it ever would again. The first half of the decade went by with nary a blip of interest to me, but from late 1975 onward it was all baseball, all the time.
Adolescence intruded upon this in the 1980s, and a combination of hormones and video games—among other distractions—meant that I became less interested in the game than I was when I was still a young kid. I imagine that happens quite a lot, actually.
But the second reason was that I wanted to avoid the proliferation of baseball cards that began in 1981, when Fleer and Donruss won the right to produce baseball cards and compete with Topps. It had not occured to me, and I think Topps preferred it that way, that lawyers and courts had been used to ensure Topps had a virtual monopoly in this regard. So this 1982 card from TCMA, which had emerged to challenge Topps back in the 1970s, would not have made the cut for inclusion into my writing. That’s why the 1974 Topps card was the focus of my recent Willie Mays piece here (which, by the way, has more views than anything else I’ve written here so far. Please feel free to read it over if you haven’t yet done so.)
The 1982 card was only acquired by me earlier this month in a baseball card grab bag at a game in Boston’s Fenway Park. For three dollars, or two for five dollars, I was able to get roughly 75 cards wrapped up in a brown paper sack, perfect for sorting through and looking for interesting items. I found lots of interesting things, mainly from what is now referred to as the “junk wax” era of baseball cards, but I was also able to find a Tim Wakefield card which was sent out to my brother-in-law, who knew him personally. It was a pretty nice card too, and it felt like the cards had paid for themselves just by being able to share one of them with someone else.
But another card, the Mays one shown above, also contained a bit of historical information that blows my mind. A few sentences of text describing Mays’ brilliant career appears, and the last sentence caught my eye: “{Mays} ranks among the top 10 lifetime in games, at-bats, hits, homers, runs scored, RBI, and walks.” That’s quite an impressive list, and any player in the lifetime top 10 for any one of these stats could point to their amazing baseball career. But SEVEN such categories? That’s far beyond what any other player could expect to achieve.
The card was printed in 1982, or more than 40 years ago, and I wondered how many of these categories still, all these years later, have Willie Mays in their top 10 list. As it turns out, Mays STILL ranks in the career top 10 in games played (9th), homers (6th), and runs scored (7th). He also ranks 12th in RBI, 13th in hits, and 14th in at-bats.
The only category where Mays has seen real slippage is in walks, where he currently ranks 22nd on the all-time list. However, unless Joey Votto can get back onto a major league roster and draw more than 100 walks at age 40, Mays’ current standing in the walks category isn’t going to change anytime soon.
The greatness of Willie Mays will live on for as long as baseball is played, and his statistical marks will endure, far longer than those who once watched him play in person. And this random card from Fenway Park proves how remarkable his career truly was.
Your writing is, as usual, excellent. And what you say about Mays is spot on. But that you have made your relationship to baseball through cards compelling is what makes this column work. At least to me.