Willie Mays won't be replaced, but now he is barely followed

Blacks make up only 6 percent of MLB rosters, a trend that isn't reversing.

The first Next Willie Mays was Bobby Bonds. He actually played in the same outfield with Mays, and Mays made a famous catch while the two collided in Candlestick Park one day. Like Mays, Bonds mastered all of baseball’s skills but also fell victim to some of its challenges, mostly in the area of contact. A drinking problem also interfered. But Bonds was the second player to reach 300 home runs and 300 steals. Mays was the first, and Bonds had five 30-30 seasons.

The next Next Mays was Chili Davis. He hit 19 home runs as a Giants rookie in 1982. He would play 19 years and, like Bonds, wear a closetful of uniforms, and he wound up with an .811 OPS and 350 homers, and World Series rings with the Yankees and Twins. Fortunately, Davis was enough of a realist to separate everyone else’s dreams from his own. He knew there were no Next Mozarts or Oliviers or Mayses.

Mays died on Tuesday. The Giants and Cardinals played a game at Birmingham’s Rickwood Field on Thursday, commemorating the Negro Leagues. Rickwood was built in 1910, and Mays played there for the Birmingham Black Barons, as did Satchel Paige and Lyman Bostock Sr., whose son was a talented outfielder for the Twins and Angels. It’s a shame Mays couldn’t re-enter his old stomping ground, but he was 93, and it would have been a long trip and a very hot night. There was still an outpouring for Mays that was an educational gift for those who don’t remember Willie, Mickey and The Duke, not even as a sappy Top 40 hit. He did things nobody else could and did them like no one else would.

But there was an extra dimension to the sadness. If there is a Next Mays he is playing quarterback for the Arizona Cardinals. Or maybe shooting guard for the Cleveland Cavaliers. Kyler Murray was the ninth choice in the 2018 baseball draft, and he drove in 48 runs in 51 games for Oklahoma. But he also won the Heisman Trophy and picked the NFL instead. Donovan Mitchell grew up around baseball because his dad was a minor league manager in the Mets’ organization. He didn’t pick the NBA until he broke his wrist in high school, and decided basketball was a lesser risk.

Jameis Winston was another Heisman winner who picked quarterbacking over baseball. He was the closer for Florida State. Charlie Ward also won the Heisman at FSU and was drafted twice in baseball, but knew he was suited for hoops and had a nice career for the Knicks.

According to the Society of Baseball Research, Black players made up 18.7 percent of MLB rosters in 1981. That was an alltime high. In 2024 they make up six percent.Could you ever conceive of a day when there would be a higher percentage of Blacks in hockey than in baseball? Better get ready. At the moment, NHL rosters are 4.5 percent black.

Reasons abound, most of them outside the purview of MLB, which has emptied its think tanks in trying to reverse the curve. If there’s a leading culprit, it might be the proliferation of summer youth teams under the catch-all of Travel Ball. It is expensive, it is normally based in the relative whiteness of the suburbs, and it works to exclude Black athletes who are being asked to play AAU basketball in the summer, or attend football camps and practices. Those who have an eye toward professional riches have no doubt noticed that NBA and NFL players get to the big money quicker than those in baseball, and those players don’t have to ride minor league buses and eat at Taco Bell drive-thrus. It really becomes an easy decision. Dave Winfield was drafted in all three sports and chose baseball and rode that choice to the Hall of Fame. It’s doubtful he would do so today.

College baseball is also stuck at 6 percent Black participation. Maybe the chaos of college athletes will change scholarship limits across the board, or do away with them altogether, but at the moment college baseball works on an 11.7 scholarship limit. That’s for a lineup card that includes 10 players, including the DH. Football, which has 22 starters, enjoys 85 scholarships. Thus, few ballplayers get full scholarships. That also simplifies the options.

The style of major league baseball has also changed, and those changes have impeded Blacks. There is a need for pitchers, in the era of short starts. In the 60s and 70s, there were eight or nine pitchers on each team. Now there might be 13. More than half the players are pitchers these days, and most Black players are channeled to the outfield as youths.

Competition from the Caribbean and the Gulf might be the most influential factor of all. In that 1981 season, only 11.1 major league players were Latino. This year, it’s 29 percent. The best athletes in the Dominican Republic are baseball players, and they are schooled at academies sponsored by major league teams. Latino players are more sophisticated and influential than ever. Of the top 20 batters in OPS at the moment, eight are from the Caribbean or South America.

The Black attrition is self-perpetuating. Mays, Hank Aaron, Frank Robinson and others actively counseled young players of color (and others, if you recall the way Robinson and Vada Pinson helped guide Pete Rose). Ken Griffey Jr. gave a poignant interview to MLB Network the night Mays died, saying his heart “was on the floor” and remembering how he came to expect to hear from Mays regularly. When Griffey would make an error, Mays would squeakily ask if Griffey’s glove was working, and if he wanted one of Willie’s. “It would be the wrong hand,” the lefthanded Griffey would reply.

“It was tough love,” Griffey said. “If I wasn’t going well he’d say, ‘Pick it up. You’re better than that.’ If I needed help he’d say, ‘Settle down. You’re young. You’re going to be all right.’ He was always someone who cared.”

Will Aaron Judge or Mookie Betts  show the same empathy? Or will anyone be there to listen?

By the way, there are signs of a new Next Mays, developing in San Francisco. Heliot Ramos, from Puerto Rico, was the Giants’ first round pick seven years ago. He had to hoist himself from the minor league quicksand, and was one of the first roster cuts by the Giants this spring. Once he came up, he built a beachhead, hitting .297 with 10 home runs and 35 RBIs and making improbable catches and throws while he learns centerfield. 

Fortunately, Ramos will be allowed to find his way without shadows. The impossible comparison seems to have aged out. Now the question is whether the circle that ran through Rickwood Field can stay unbroken.