“Willie Mays is the greatest ball player I've ever seen. I never saw Joe DiMaggio play, but if Joe DiMaggio was better than Willie Mays, he belongs in Heaven.”

—  Roberto Clemente

Roberto Clemente, as quoted in "For Clemente After 3,000ː Saturday Cheers Linger" https://news.google.com/newspapers?id=XOANAAAAIBAJ&sjid=u2wDAAAAIBAJ&pg=4491%2C127814 by Charley Feeney, in The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette (Monday, October 2, 1972), p. 24
Baseball-related, <big><big>1970s</big></big>, <big>1972</big>

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Roberto Clemente 170
Puerto Rican baseball player 1934–1972

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“How do you measure a man? How can you compare one man with another unless you’ve seen them both? I cannot tell about other men who played long ago. I saw Mays. To me, Willie Mays is the greatest who ever played. But he is forty and has had his days – he is tired. San Francisco is all tired. For them it was not easy. For twenty days, they were in a tight pennant race and don’t know where they are. Mentally, they were going to be tight. You could see Mays is tired.”

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“Mantle played ball almost under a shroud of depression, because he always thought he was going to die an early death. But Mays probably thinks he's going to live forever. Mantle acted like a man who was doomed. Mays never did, even though he played long beyond his ability. I talked to Willie after the 1973 World Series, in which he looked terrible. I said, "What were you doing out there, Willie?" "Oh, I was having fun!" he told me. Mantle never had fun. Mays, on the other hand, seemed to be inoculated from all the pressure. He simply went beyond the usual frames of reference. If I were writing this, I'd say that he went beyond the usual frames of reverence. That's the way we all felt, and I think it was true for not only the press, but also for managers and other players. And this bled into the other pages of the newspaper.”

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“He insisted the other players allow me to take batting practice and he helped me. He put a bat behind my foot and made sure I didn't drag my foot. Willie Mays also helped me. He told me not to allow the pitchers to show me up. He suggested I get mean and if the pitchers knocked me down, get up and hit the ball. Show them.”

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As paraphrased and quoted in "The Scoreboard: Clemente's Only Regret? One Pennant" by Les Biederman, in The Pittsburgh Press (Sunday, March 31, 1968), Sec. 4, Pg. 3
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Context: The best advice and most help he ever received came from Buster Clarkson, an American player, when he was in Puerto Rico."I played for his team and I was just a kid," Clemente recalled. "He insisted the other players allow me to take batting practice and he helped me. He put a bat behind my foot and made sure I didn't drag my foot. Willie Mays also helped me. He told me not to allow the pitchers to show me up. He suggested I get mean and if the pitchers knocked me down, get up and hit the ball. Show them."

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