Mays quotes:

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They invented the All-Star game for Willie Mays. -- Ted Williams
With the Giants I broadcast the debut of Hall of Famer Willie Mays. -- Ernie Harwell
Willie Mays was the best baseball player I ever saw. He could do anything. -- Doug Harvey
I want to establish myself as the first Eric Davis, not the next Willie Mays. -- Eric Davis
I think anybody who saw him will tell you that Willie Mays was the greatest player who ever lived. -- Monte Irvin
I played with Willie Mays and against Hank Aaron. They were tremendous players, but they were no Josh Gibson. -- Monte Irvin
Willie Mays could throw better, and Hank Aaron could hit more home runs. But I've got enthusiasm. I've got desire. I've got hustle. Those are God-given talents, too. -- Pete Rose
I think it's incredible because there were guys like Mays and Mantle and Henry Aaron who were great players for ten years... I only had four or five good years. -- Sandy Koufax
Come on, when does it come to the point where your name can't come up in trade talks? Willie Mays got traded. Pedro Martinez got traded. So what? That's part of the game. -- Eric Davis
As much as I loved Jackie Robinson, Roy Campanella, Junior Gilliam, and Don Newcombe, I loved watching Willie Mays play more than all of them combined, even if he played for the 'bad guys!' -- Cheech Marin
I'm being compared to the impossible. I never saw Mays, Aaron or Clemente play. What about the people I face every day? Tim Raines is the best? Mattingly is the best? Why not compare me to my peers? -- Eric Davis
Willie Mays was the best ever. When I was in college I once made a catch like the one Mays made over his head. Sometimes when I'm lying in bed at night I think about it. It still makes me warm. -- David Duchovny
I had some great role models along the way. My on-field heroes were the great Ernie Banks, Billy Williams, and Willie Mays. I wanted to be like them on the field, and I am so damn proud to join them in the Hall of Fame. -- Allan Ray
I've been hearing this since I first joined the Reds organization, that I'm going to be the next this or that. It's tough on a young player coming up. You show some positive things and everybody jumps on that and says you should be the next Willie Mays. -- Eric Davis
I understood that my family was rich in love but would probably never own the land my father, John, dreamed of owning. My mother, Willie Ella Mays Clarke, was a washerwoman for poor white folks in the area of Columbus, Georgia where the writer Carson McCullers once lived. -- John Henrik Clarke
Hi, Billy Mays here for... -- Billy Mays
When I'm up against a wall, that's when Billy Mays performs best. -- Billy Mays
I never dreamed about being President, I wanted to be Willie Mays. -- George W. Bush
I've always played for the acceptance of my godfather (Willie Mays) and father (Bobby Bonds). -- Barry Bonds
I'm not sure what the hell charisma is, but I get the feeling it's Willie Mays. -- Ted Kluszewski
I can't very well tell my batters don't hit it to him. Wherever they hit it, he's there anyway (Mays). -- Gil Hodges
If I'm compared to Babe Ruth or Willie Mays, that's great. But I'm just going to go out there and be myself. -- Ken Griffey, Jr.
There have only been two authentic geniuses in the world, Willie Mays and Willie Shakespeare and I think you'd better put Shakespeare first, darling. -- Tallulah Bankhead
Even if Mays is given every conceivable break on every unknown - defense, base running, clutch hitting - his performance still would not match Mantle's. -- Bill James
If you want to know who was better, me or Willie Mays, you have to look at our career stats. And Willie's bottom line was better. -- Mickey Mantle
I have to give Mays one edge, durability. Mickey isn't sound and Willie is. Otherwise, if I had a chance to trade for either player, I'd pick Mantle. -- Gabe Paul
When you get to be my age, you begin to count how many Mays you have left - the best time of year for flowers and birds in North America. -- Robert Bateman
I think it's incredible because there were guys like (Willie) Mays and (Mickey) Mantle and Henry Aaron who were great players for ten years... I only had four or five good years. -- Sandy Koufax
He was something like zero for twenty-one the first time I saw him. His first major league hit was a home run off me and I'll never forgive myself. We might have gotten rid of Willie (Mays) forever if I'd only struck him out. -- Warren Spahn
Any ballplayers that played for me on either the Cardinals or the Yankees could come to me if he were in need and I would give him a helping hand. I made only two exceptions, Carl Mays and Joe Bush. If they were in a gutter, I'd kick them. -- Miller Huggins
Why the fairy tale of Willie Mays making a brilliant World Series catch, and then dashing off to play stickball in the street with his teenage pals. That's baseball. So is the husky voice of a doomed Lou Gehrig saying, 'I consider myself the luckiest man on the face of this earth.' -- Ernie Harwell
Oscar Charleston was the Willie Mays of his day. Nobody ever played center field better than Willie Mays. Suppose they had never given Willie a chance, and we said that, would anybody believe there was a kid in Alabama who was that good? Or there was a black guy in Atlanta who might break Babe Ruth's home run record? No. -- Monte Irvin
Leo Durocher was our manager and he brought Willie up to me and said, 'This is Willie Mays and he's your new roommate.' You could see right away that this young man was a natural. He had those real big hands, great power and speed and would catch everything hit in his direction. He's the best center fielder that ever lived, no question. -- Monte Irvin
Tell me not here, it needs not saying, What tune the enchantress plays In aftermaths of soft September Or under blanching mays, For she and I were long acquainted And I knew all her ways. -- A. E. Housman

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