Jack Buck used to say that the greatest player he ever saw was Willie Mays.

The whole idea of being a five-tool player.

You know, that phrase did not exist before Willie Mays came along.

Willie was a completely new archetype for baseball,

just someone who forced us to reconsider the possible.

Well, every since the passing of the late great Willie Mays, I've had many opportunities to talk about his legacy and obviously his connections to this great museum and the Negro Leagues, as many of you've heard me say on any number of occasions,

a career that began as a 17-year-old center fielder for the Birmingham Black Barons,

who would go on to become arguably the greatest major league of all time.

And every time that I get to walk people through the Negro Leagues baseball museum, as you could well imagine, it is eye-opening for so many of my visitors because they are

surprised to learn that Jackie Robinson's career began in the

Negro leagues, that Henry Aaron's illustrious professional baseball career began in the

Negro leagues, and of course, a wonderful photograph that brings it to life of a young

Willie Mays as a member of those Birmingham black barons

celebrating beating my Kansas City monarchs to knock them out of the pennant and for them to

advance on into the World Series to play the Homestead Grays in 1948, a series that the Barons would ultimately lose to the

homestead Grays, but it was also the emergence of a budding star by the name of Willie Mays.

You say the name Willie Mays, and it just captures your heart, particularly for those who are

old enough to have seen him play.

Folks, he never got booed even in the opponent's ballpark.

He was endeared by a lesion of baseball fans worldwide for not only the way he played the game,

the style that he obviously brought to the game, but the way that he conducted himself off the field, those vivid images of him playing stickball as he walked the streets

of Harlem with those kids in Harlem. Again, who does that? Willie Mays. And that is why when you say the name Willie Mays, this is so hard to be

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