The greatest living ballplayer…

Mays.jpgis 73 today. That’s Willie Mays, obviously.

When Joe DiMaggio died in 1999, baseball luminaries were asked who inherited the title of greatest living player. NewMexiKen had a different assumption. I thought Willie Mays became the greatest living ballplayer when Ty Cobb died in 1961.

Manager Leo Durocher, who must have been from Deadwood, once recalled a remarkable home run by Mays: “I never saw a f—ing ball go out of a f—ing park so f—ing fast in my f—ing life!”