Willie Mays has died at 93. And so, those of us who played baseball as kids in the 50’s have lost another hero.

Those of us who collected baseball cards and prayed we’d see the name of Mays or Campanella or Mantle, each time we bought a new pack of five at the drugstore. Those of us who got on the bus for an away game at another small town on a hot, dusty summer’s day in Minnesota, Nebraska or Missouri. Those of us who played in a big-city youth league in New York, Chicago or San Francisco.

The face of major league baseball, the face of America, was changing when they let Willie into the bigs in 1951, hitting 20 home runs and being named Rookie of the Year for the New York Giants. I would have been three at the time. Not even big enough to play with the local “Pee Wees.” Eventually, I’d get there. We’d all get there, to our dusty diamond behind the school house, with giant moguls they could never seem to level out that made a grounder hop around like a nervous cannonball, making it almost impossible to catch. But Willie, would have caught it. He could catch anything. And he could hit. He could do it all.

Sportswriters are saying he may have been the greatest of all time. With a career total of 660 home runs and fielding skills that were nothing short of phenomenal, maybe. Maybe not. It really doesn’t matter. He was Willie Mays. For those of us who played on humble sandlots or in grassy fields from coast to coast all those years ago, his death is a mark in the timeline of our lives.