Who was the greatest baseball player of all time?  According to this documentary, it was the great Giants / Mets centerfielder Willie Mays.  The host says it multiple times and Mr. Mays declines to demur.  That status may be so — Willie Mays is certainly among the greatest who ever played — yet I was surprised that the film really doesn’t support that claim with comparisons to the other legends of the game, particularly Henry Aaron, a contemporary of Mays who is barely mentioned.  This documentary takes a different approach to its subject, one that is much more personal.

Nelson George’s documentary follows Willie Mays from his days in the Negro Leagues (he was a rookie on the Birmingham Black Barons, who lost the final Negro League World Series in 1948) to being drafted and playing for the New York Giants, which moved to San Francisco a few years later.  Mays was a true five-tool player who played a stellar center field for his entire 24-year career, and he even missed a season-and-a-half due to service in the U. S. Army.  He finished his career back in New York with the Mets, was elected to the Hall of Fame, and has been a legendary figure in the game ever since.

Mays discusses his career and its highlights in fascinating detail, with positive and sometimes ironic or impish responses to questions.  Footage is provided for many of those highlights, but the quality is unimpressive compared to the way sports are filmed now.  The documentary spotlights how Mays supported social causes even while he avoided being a public face associated with them, and defends his role as a Black role model of the era despite calls for him to be more visible and radical.  The film ends depicting his relationship to Bobby Bonds and his son Barry, to whom Mays served as godfather.  In essence, the baton of the game’s greatest player was handed from Mays to his godson.

That last part is what holds this back from greatness.  Barry Bonds is the poster child for suspected steroid use in baseball, yet that subject is never broached.  Willie Mays may have been in a position to prevent that usage, but he did not.  Maybe he could not.  But if one is going to involve Barry Bonds as a subject and interviewee, it should have been a requirement to address that issue.  The film never makes a statistical case for claiming Mays is the greatest, nor does it compare him with Aaron, or Musial, or Ruth.  Ty Cobb and Tris Speaker, great center fielders of their day, are never mentioned.  What this film does for Willie Mays is nice and enjoyable, but it had the opportunity to do more, and it settled for less.  ☆ ☆ ☆.  19 December 2022.