The young local TV news anchor tried as hard as he could but still struggled to make it believable as he did the story on the recent passing of the great Willie Mays.

He called him, and rightfully so, “the best five-tool player in Major League Baseball history,” but, if someone hadn’t provided him with a script to explain what those tools are, he probably would have thought they were a wrench, screwdriver, pliers, saw and crowbar.

He may not have ever even heard of Mays, since he retired 50 years ago, a quarter-century before the anchor was born.

That’s what happens when your contemporaries aren’t around anymore to sing your praises. At 93, Mays was the oldest living member of the Baseball Hall of Fame.

You see that a lot at funeral services and calling hours for an older people who have outlived all those who really knew them back when they were at their best.

There was indeed no one quite like Mays because of his completeness, just as there was no one quite like late Browns running back Jim Brown because he was faster and stronger than everybody else and virtually indestructible. When he passed away in May 2023, he was constantly mentioned as “one of the greatest players in NFL history.” He wasn’t one of the greatest, but actually THE greatest, period, and anyone who got to see him play will attest to that, and has.

All those great Browns players, and teams, from the 1940s and ‘50s will never get their just due now because their time in the sun was so long ago. The people who could tell you about them are fading fast.

It is what it is, and there’s not a whole lot that anyone can do about it, even though who do know the truth, other than to keep telling it. Hopefully, somebody listens and carries that message forward into the future. But there is certainly no guarantee that it will happen.

Steve King