Here is a card, like most cards, with a story to it. You might expect it’s a story about Willie Mays. In fact, it’s a story about everyone not Willie Mays.
At least a few of us remember the play like it was yesterday. The hitter has some power, but the centerfielder chooses to play him shallow. Even before bat meets ball, the fielder knows one of two things is about to happen: extra bases or the greatest catch of his life.
He quickly turns and by the time the crack of the bat is heard he is in a dead sprint only stealing a quick glance back to ensure the ball’s trajectory matches the path in his head.
Winning a race of man against ball is not an easy thing—the laws of physics might even suggest it’s impossible—but after what feels like he’s run a city block the fielder reaches up with his glove, still with his back to the plate, and somehow snatches the bullet of a baseball from the air. They say seeing is believing, but almost nobody watching even believes what they just witnessed. Of course, the play was not even over.
Still in full stride, the fielder brings his glove arm down toward his body where in an event nearly as improbable as the grab itself his right knee hits his right elbow full force and pops the ball from glove to ground.
I was 16 and had been planning, waiting, and training years for the perfect fly ball—playing everyone shallow to up the odds—and it finally came, for the last and only time of my life. My friend Robert and fate itself had gotten the better of me.
Some of our cards are just cards, but others are memories. This past week I finally picked up a card I’d always wanted. When I opened the envelope I was no longer in my office at my desk. I was at Palisades Park young, fast, free, and for a brief 6-7 seconds the great Willie Howard Mays, that instant before I learned for damn sure there could be only one.
P.S. In a bit of cardboard clairvoyance, THREE of Willie’s 1954 baseball cards (Bowman, Red Man, Topps) referenced a web gem nearly identical to “The Catch!”
P.P.S. Fans of the “Say Hey Kid” will also enjoy this set of posts from SABR President Mark Armour.
- The Say Hey Kid: Willie is the Greatest
- The Say Hey Kid: There Isn’t A Thing That Willie Mays Can’t Do
- The Say Hey Kid: Willie Mays is Really Good
SABR's Baseball Cards Research Committee 
And after The Catch there was The Comment. Often overlooked is that manager Leo Durocher brought in LH relief pitcher Don Liddle just to face the LH bat of Vic Wertz. Liddle was then removed after Willie’s play for RH Marv Grissom. After the game, when the team was celebrating in the Giants clubhouse, Riddle went up to Mays & Durocher and dropped the walk off line “Well, I got my man.”
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