Willie Mays, who played 23 seasons in Major League baseball and was nicknamed the "Say Hey Kid", died yesterday at age 93 of heart failure at a care home in Palo Alto, California. He was baseball's oldest living Hall of Famer.
William Howard Mays Jr. was born in Westfield, Alabama to William Howard Mays Sr. and Annie Satterwhite, who never married. Mays Sr., nicknamed "Cat", was himself a talented baseball player who worked as a railroad porter and later in steel mills. Satterwhite was a high school basketball player and track athlete. Willie played baseball, football and basketball in high school.
In 1948, Mays started playing professional baseball with the Negro minor league team the Chattanooga Choo-Choos and later joined the Birmingham Black Barons of the Negro American League. The latter team lost the 1948 Negro World Series to the Homestead Grays. He did not graduate high school until 1950, after which he was signed by the New York Giants, which assigned him to the Class B Trenton Giants of the Interstate League. In 1951, he as promoted to the Class Triple-A Minneapolis Millers of the American Association, and later to the Major League team in New York, where he played well enough to earn the 1951 National League Rookie of the Year.
Mays was drafted by the U.S. Army and played for the Giants during only the first few weeks of the 1952 season. He returned after being discharged in March of 1954. While stationed at Fort Eustis in Virginia, he learned the basket catch from teammate Al Fortunato. The Giants won the N.L. Pennant and World Series in 1954, with Mays being selected the league's Most Valuable Player. During the World Series, he made his famous over-the-shoulder catch of a ball hit by Vic Wertz of the Cleveland Indians. He would go on to be selected to play in 24 All-Star Games, and win his second N.L. MVP award in 1965. His career totals included 660 home runs, 1909 runs batted in, and 339 stolen bases.
In 1958, the Giants moved to San Francisco, played at Seals Stadium for two years, and later at Candlestick Park. During April of the 1961 season, Mays hit four home runs in a single game. While mostly a center fielder, he played 48 games at first base in 1971. Early during the 1972 season, he was traded to the New York Mets, where he played part-time at both positions before retiring as a player in 1973.
Mays stayed in the Mets organization as a hitting instructor until the end of the 1979 season. Later that year, he took a job as a greeter at a gambling casino in Atlantic City, New Jersey, where he was joined by former New York Yankees player Mickey Mantle. They were both suspended from baseball, but reinstated in 1985. The next year, Mays rejoined the Giants organization. Both the Mets and the Giants have retired his number 24.
Mays was married to Marguerite Wendell Chapman from 1956 to 1963. They adopted a baby boy in 1959. He married Mae Louise Allen in 1971, their marriage lasting until her death in 2013. He was the godfather of Barry Bonds, whose father Bobby Bonds had been his Giants teammate.
On a personal note, yours truly went to see the Giants play against the Atlanta Braves at Atlanta in 1971. This means that I got to watch Willie Mays, Bobby Bonds, Hank Aaron, and their respective teammates.
Read more at MLB(dot)com, ESPN, CBS Sports, NBC Bay Area and the New York Post.
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