Tuesday's Injury Feels Like a Huge One for Byron Buxton

Willie Mays didn't start Game 2 of the 1973 World Series. He was almost a mascot by that point, playing out the string for the Mets as they won their second unexpected pennant in five years. At age 42, he'd been limited to playing first base and serving as a pinch-hitter for the final two months of the regular season, and even in those roles, he hadn't looked especially good. He did play a few innings in center at the end of the NLCS, and he got the start in Game 1 against the Oakland A's. However, he committed an ugly error in that first game of the Fall Classic, and it seemed like he might never step into the outfield again. 

New York had to call upon him to pinch-run in the top of the ninth, though, after starting center fielder Don Hahn was injured. Promptly, as he tried to accelerate and go from first to third on a single to right, he stumbled and nearly fell just before reaching second; he had to settle for going station-to-station. When he went out to center in the bottom of the ninth, he whiffed on a fly ball to left-center and fell down after missing it. Later, in extra innings, he missed another catchable ball and stumbled again.

The Mets won that game in 12 innings, thanks in part to a hit by Mays. For many, though, that game was a tragic and devastating end to the greatest career in baseball history. That 12th-inning hit was the last Mays recorded in the bigs; he was kept out of the outfield for the balance of the series. For decades thereafter, that sequence was considered the epitome of a player sticking around too long—of being so thoroughly hollowed out that it was hard not to feel it taint the memory of the legendary player they once were.

Things are not that dire for Byron Buxton—we hope. He's 10 years younger now than Mays was then. He still shows flashes of being a great athlete. The first half of this season was a dazzling display of what he can do: He had 25 home runs by June 22. 

Since that date, though, Buxton hasn't homered, and he has a .519 OPS. He's made two trips to the injured list, and played only 25 games in the last two months and change. There have been times when he looks completely unable to do the things he's always done, from beating out infield singles and would-be double play balls to flagging down fly balls to the gaps. He's had good days, or at least good plays, but he's never truly looked like himself long enough for anyone to muster much hope. 

On Tuesday night in West Sacramento (as conceptually close to doing it in Oakland, where Mays last played, as one can get right now), Buxton tried to cut off a Henry Bolte line drive ticketed for the wall in deepest right-center. Bolte had really caught it on the screws, at 112 MPH off the bat, and maybe Buxton tried a late acceleration because he realized he was in danger of being beaten. Maybe, since he was closing on the ball when something changed, he was preparing to bend low or to slide to snare the ball on the bounce. Either way, Buxton went to make a move, and then he didn't make one. Instead, he wound up standing near the wall in right-center, moving minimally and waiting for the trainer to arrive from the dugout. Bolte's hit had turned into an easy triple. Buxton limped to the gate in left field and back toward the visitors' clubhouse. 

Given his relative youth and the state of modern sports medicine, Buxton probably wasn't departing center field for the last time. He might be done out there for 2026, though. It's clear that he has a major injury to his right hip. Just as Mays's frailty was exposed by the fact that he couldn't keep his feet, the fact that Buxton couldn't get down to play the ball off his feet feels foreboding. All the historic evocations of that moment were unwelcome and uncomfortable. Buxton certainly isn't on Mays's level, but Mays is one of the giants of the game, in whose shadow all great center fielders toil and to whom everyone aspires to earn a comparison. Buxton has the remarkable power and speed that made Mays so captivating, and at their best, each was the best defensive center fielder in their league.

Whatever Buxton has been playing through, it looks like his ability to do so has to be reevaluated. It's worth wondering whether, in a few years, we'll remember this as the moment when Buxton's time as a center fielder came to an ignominious end. It's not quite Mays and the World Series, but it felt just as sad and wrong.