Willie Mays celebrated at Oracle Park in San Francisco

SAN FRANCISCO — The warmest my heart has ever been was a summer afternoon at Oracle Park. With the gentle bay breeze blowing out over Levi’s Landing, the impossibly recognizable voice of Jon Miller echoed through the ballpark on Monday, the day that the San Francisco Giants remembered the life and legacy of Willie Howard Mays Jr., who died June 18 at age 93.

No swirling winds. No biting cold. No fever pitch ballgame. Just legend upon legend, friends, family and furthermore sitting in folding chairs in foul territory listening to elected officials, dignitaries and ballplayers, “Forever Giants,” laud the platitudes of the Say Hey Kid.

When Bill Clinton, the 42nd president of the United States of America, took to the podium just in front of the pitcher’s mound, receiving standing ovations both coming and going, it was clear that a level of class this country hasn’t seen in some time was being celebrated by the 4,500 who showed up to pay their final respects.

Mays never played at this park. And honestly, for those who weren’t close friends, a lot of the initial sting of Mays’ death had passed on, too. Following all the chaotic emotion of learning that the Birmingham, Alabama, native died during the very week that MLB was celebrating his very start in pro ball in his hometown at the very same time, the city by the bay took its collective breath to start the week while the team was on an off day.

MLB special assistant to the commissioner Joe Torre, a nine-time All-Star as a player and four-time World Series champion as a manager, told stories about making Mays wait at the plate as a catcher playing against him. Wild tales of Mays beginning and ending conversations before and after homers is the kind of thing you wouldn’t believe unless other actual Hall of Famers were there to recount the stories.

“I know he’s gone. But he left enough for all of us to hold on to,” Torre said on the podium. “Probably the most exciting player to ever play the game.”

There’s something about a ballpark with no one (really) in it or on it that feels so small, yet so large at once. If you’ve never been to the Gotham Club, a private space reserved only for members at Oracle Park, it features all kinds of history from the club formerly known as the New York Gothams, the team you see now in San Francisco playing as the Giants.

Former outfielder Ellis Burks, who played for the Giants from 1998 to 2000, and batted behind *cough* outfielder Barry Bonds and infielder Jeff Kent, made the pilgrimage. Once a part of an all-Black outfield playing for the Chicago White Sox, he was at a point in his career when he got to San Francisco where he was a touch unsure of himself.

Mays reminded him that he was there for a reason.

“I got traded to the San Francisco Giants. They got me off the field, I had to meet the team in Philly. You know, once you get traded to a team like the Giants, you immediately want to justify the trade, you want to try to go out and do the best you can. I struggled that first week. So, we come back here, Willie Mays calls me over with his high-pitched voice,” Burks explained with the kind of look on his face of a man who remembers how much a simple vote of confidence can do for someone.

“I said, ‘Mr. Mays, pleasure to meet you,’ this and that. He said, ‘Look, we know exactly what you can do. You’re trying too hard.’ Which I was. He could see that. That meant a lot to me that he called me over, really broke it down and said, ‘We know the kind of player you are. That’s why we came and got you from Colorado. Because we know what you can do. Just go out there and have fun.’ When he said that, it was like the weight was off of my shoulders.”

In 2000, he won the Willie Mac Award, given to the most inspirational player on the team, as voted by the organization, down to the fans. Burks was awarded a World Series ring in 2004 from the Boston Red Sox even though he didn’t make the postseason roster. Mays effectively reignited the former Blake Street Bomber’s career and spirit.

“Willie talked to everybody. And people listened. See, that’s the difference,” Dusty Baker, who managed the Giants from 1993 to 2002, said after the ceremony. “Willie didn’t just do a bunch of idle talk. When Willie said something, he meant it. He wasn’t no BSer, now.”

Baker had been in Birmingham for the Rickwood Field game but was too sick to make the festivities. Before then, however, when he heard that Mays wasn’t going to make it, he made sure to go visit him first. Johnnie B. Baker Jr. went to see his old friend June 17 in the Bay Area. Willie Howard Mays Jr. died the next day. Ten days later, another Forever Giant, Orlando Cepeda, died at age 86.

“I mean, it was a tough week for me,” Baker concluded.

Many people made sure to be there. Miller, the longtime Giants play-by-play announcer, certainly cut short a vacation to make it home to be the emcee to honor Mays on the day. He was on TV when the news hit, with former outfielder Hunter Pence, and they handled it the best they could.

“He made me a fan. You couldn’t really help but be a baseball fan, if you grew up here,” Miller explained after the three-hour ceremony that featured everything from Andra Day singing to Bonds, Mays’ godson, speaking and Michael, Mays’ only son, being presented with a military flag to honor his father’s service (in his baseball prime, no less) during the Korean War.

“As a kid, as a 10-year-old, which was when I was saw my first game in person, I think I thought he was a superhero. You know, like you saw in movies and TV,” Miller said. “And one of the cool things about coming to the Giants and getting really know Willie and seeing him at the ballpark is to realize that he wasn’t a superhero. He was a flesh and blood human being, and which makes it all the more impressive.”

TV sports commentator Bob Costas was ready to hop multiple flights if it turned out that Mays could have made it to Birmingham. He had a niece graduating from college, but was more than ready to make the trek if the Say Hey Kid actually made a public appearance.

“I was actually willing to like, take some sort of weird odyssey through Birmingham, and then back to Fairfield, Iowa, with like two connecting flights,” Costas said between burger bites in what’s known as the 415 Section behind the centerfield wall, named for the city’s ZIP code. “If Willie had been there and been able to [be there] … I got the sense over the last few months that not only was he not able to be there, but probably not able to do an interview. But I would have gone out of my way for that.”

The guest list was as star-studded as can be. I’m not sure that Clinton and film director Spike Lee will be in the same place at the same time again. By the time the ceremony was done, the cold wind that the city is so well-known for had set in, a reminder that had he not played in this particular place, his numbers as a big leaguer might have been even more astronomical.

For Michael Mays, who’s been on a whirlwind for a fortnight, the work, somehow, has just begun. He’s been glad-handing and listening to people tell him stories about his father for decades. Monday meant he could finally exhale a little before he got back to work. In short, he’s been a bigger star this summer than ever.

“The little 15 minutes of light is great. I hope I was able to refocus it to where it belongs,” he noted at the reception. “He’s still running the show as far as I’m concerned. I go back to doing what I’m doing. I’m a moviemaker by trade. We got the story. People been asking me my whole life when am I gonna tell it.”

To hear a man so purposefully state his current mission with poise and the path to executing it was remarkable to hear, considering.

“I’ve said to them, ‘when it’s over,’ ” Michael Mays said. “So, we start that work.”

Mays’ career ended 51 years ago. His life ended 22 days ago. His legacy across the country — from the Bay to Birmingham to the bricks of Harlem — will never be forgotten.