Willie Mays was so much to so many. His legacy — and humanity — will still be celebrated.

BIRMINGHAM, Ala. — As my plane landed Tuesday in Birmingham, I thought of Willie Mays and Hank Aaron. The two baseball diamonds, proud sons of Alabama, ruled the golden age of African American baseball in the last half of the 20th century after beginning their careers in the Negro Leagues.

This week, baseball’s long mea culpa over its embrace of segregation up until 1947 resulted in the game descending on Birmingham. The game came with twofold intentions. First, baseball wanted to honor Mays where he started his professional career as a Birmingham Black Baron. Second, the game wanted to celebrate the too-often overlooked Negro Leagues circuits that were made necessary by a segregated nation and a discriminatory game.

Aaron, a teenaged Indianapolis Clown-turned-big-league home run great, would have loved this. Sadly, he died in 2021. Early on Tuesday, as the plane touched down, I thought that at least Mays and two other surviving Negro League players would feel the love flowing through events held here all week.

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That, alas, was not to be for Mays. He passed away Tuesday evening, hours after he had released a statement explaining that poor health prevented him from traveling from San Francisco to Birmingham. Hours later, his family announced that Mays had died at age 93.

People who try to be rational about such things spent Wednesday trying to understand that a grown man who played with the joy of a child, who lived up to the name “Say Hey Kid,” finally struck out against encroaching age and ailments like a mere mortal.

Ninety-three? How could that be when all we see is old footage of Mays playing stickball in Harlem with others not near his age or size, but always equal in childlike wonder when exercising the love of Playing a game (with, always, a capital P).

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Yes, time refused to keep Mays forever young, leaving that to us. Our collective, fuzzy black-and-white memories may still show the enthusiasm of a five-tool player with that magical smile and joie de vivre. We saw that joy, but also humility as he shook off others’ near-unanimous beliefs that he was, pound for pound, the greatest to ever play the game.

Willie never actually understood that he was that revered, that beloved, and respected. Maybe not like Hank or Jackie or Ruth, DiMaggio, or Mantle. Still, the man who never misread a Gold Glove-defying long drive to most spacious center fields, had doubts that made him all the more mortal.

I refer back to his emotional acceptance of the Baseball Writers’ Association of America New York chapter’s newly minted “Willie, Mickey and The Duke” award in 1995. I was the chapter chair at the time, so was privileged to chair our award banquet. It was a difficult time in the game, after a work stoppage killed the 1994 World Series, spring training in 1995 was in danger. The fans were furious. Only Mays, Mantle, and Snider could save the biggest offseason banquet in the country, our members felt. Thus the award, and their willingness to attend, would bring the fans in.

They did that and more. Willie, Mickey, and The Duke, the crown princes of New York baseball in the ’50s, filled a cavernous hotel ballroom. All in attendance eagerly awaited the Hall of Fame center fielders’ game-on-the-line late-inning speeches. Not one of them disappointed.

Most intriguingly, no one on the dais cried, except for Mays. And no one in the awed audience, or me, left with a dry eye, because of Mays.

Why? Mays accepted his one-third of the salute in tears, as he haltingly admitted he didn’t think anyone in the game would ever admire him enough, love and respect him enough to name an award after him. Mays cited awards already named for Hank Aaron and Jackie Robinson. Indeed, other greats like Cy Young and Joe DiMaggio also had been so honored. Now having his own brought him to tears.

A baseball writers’ chapter established an award to save a banquet. We had united three of the greatest pieces in the Apple’s august baseball history for the first time outside of All-Star games. Little did we know that we also bolstered a player who had long questioned his place on the game’s pantheon.

Mays, humbled beyond words, told the audience that while he had planned to have his ashes scattered across San Francisco, he would at that point instruct his family to save a part of his mortal being to share somewhere in New York, the city where he began is big-league career after he left the Black Barons.

As I sat within arm’s length from him, I had to look through my own waterworks only to see Willie’s tears welling up on the podium. I could hear fans and baseball’s hierarchy in the audience choking back tears, as well, as their seemingly invincible hero laid bare his own doubts and vulnerabilities.

How could he not know what we all did? No one else was universally thought of as most everyone’s all-time greatest. Not Mickey, not DiMaggio, not even Jackie nor Hank.

It was Mays.

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I hope that in the end he understood that. I hope he did not need any more affirmation. But if he did, he would have found them this week in Birmingham. This weeklong festivities were all about Mays and his homecoming.

Sean Gibson, the great-grandson of Josh Gibson, the player now ranked atop Major League Baseball’s all-time hitting percentage ranks, said of Mays: “This week was important before he passed, but now that he passed, it’s more so. He started as a legend right here in Birmingham and became a great major league baseball player. I believe his perseverance, his hard work in this league [Negro Southern League] helped him be a great player in the majors.”

Gibson, founder of an organization of descendants of Negro League players who gathered here this week, then pointed to all the events that will bear salutes to Mays, including the game between the Giants and St. Louis Cardinals at Rickwood Field on Thursday.

“When you lose a legend like Willie, instead of just honoring him, we’ll be celebrating him,” Gibson said.

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Randall Woodfin, the mayor of Birmingham, took it one step more.

“Today is Juneteenth, a day that is designated to celebrate the independence of Black Americans,” he said of the national holiday commemorating the day enslaved people in Texas were informed of their freedom. “Last night, when I got the news that Willie passed, my thought was that there is no better way to celebrate him than the day designated to celebrate Black excellence.”

Hear that, and believe, Willie. We who felt your impact and greatness, certainly do.

Claire Smith is on the faculty at Temple and is the co-director of the Claire Smith Center for Sports Media. She is a member of the Baseball Hall of Fame and a former Inquirer sports columnist.