Article: 'Kid' takes his first big step; After brief slump, Mays says hello to majors with homer.(SPORTS)(THE WAY IT WAS)

Byline: Dick Heller, THE WASHINGTON TIMES

Way back when, meaning in the 1950s and '60s, Willie Mays' awesome skills at every aspect of baseball inspired many observers to oral overkill.

Leo Durocher, his first manager with the New York Giants in 1951 once described Mays as "Joe Louis, Jascha Heifetz, Sammy Davis and [racehorse] Nashua rolled into one. ... If he could cook, I'd marry him"

Said actress Tallulah Bankhead, a big Giants fan: "There have been only two geniuses in the world, Willie Mays and Willie Shakespeare."

Nor was Mays himself given to undue modesty. Asked once to identify the best ballplayer he ever saw, Willie replied simply, "I was." Yet ...

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