Willie Mays
Center fielder
Born: (1931-05-06) May 6, 1931 (age 81) Westfield, Alabama
Batted: Right	Threw: Right
MLB debut
May 25, 1951 for the New York Giants
Last MLB appearance
October, 1973 for the New York Mets
Career statistics
Batting average	.302
Home runs	660
Hits	3,283
Runs batted in	1,903
Teams
New York / San Francisco Giants (1951–1952, 1954–1972) New York Mets (1972–1973)
Career highlights and awards
24× All-Star (1954, 1955, 1956, 1957, 1958, 1959, 1959², 1960, 1960², 1961, 1961², 1962, 1962², 1963, 1964, 1965, 1966, 1967, 1968, 1969, 1970, 1971, 1972, 1973) World Series champion (1954) 12× Gold Glove Award winner (1957, 1958, 1959, 1960, 1961, 1962, 1963, 1964, 1965, 1966, 1967, 1968) 2× NL MVP (1954, 1965) 1951 NL Rookie of the Year 2× MLB All-Star Game MVP (1963, 1968) 1971 Roberto Clemente Award Hit 4 home runs in one game on April 30, 1961 San Francisco Giants #24 retired Major League Baseball All-Century Team Major League Baseball All-Time Team
Member of the National
Baseball Hall of Fame
Induction	1979
Vote	94.7% (first ballot)

Willie Howard Mays, Jr. (born May 6, 1931) is a retired American professional baseball player who played the majority of his major league career with the New York and San Francisco Giants before finishing with the New York Mets. Nicknamed The Say Hey Kid, Mays was elected to the Baseball Hall of Fame in 1979, his first year of eligibility. Most baseball fans and historians agree that Mays was the greatest all-around baseball player to have played in the Major Leagues.^{[1][2][3][4][5][6][7]}

Mays won two MVP awards and tied Stan Musial's record with 24 appearances in the All-Star Game. Mays ended his career with 660 home runs, third at the time of his retirement, and currently fourth all-time. An outstanding center fielder, he won a record-tying twelve Gold Gloves starting the year the award was introduced six seasons into his career.^[8]

In 1999, Mays placed second on The Sporting News' List of the 100 Greatest Baseball Players, making him the highest-ranking living player. Later that year, he was also elected to the Major League Baseball All-Century Team. Mays is one of five NL players to have eight consecutive 100-RBI seasons, along with Mel Ott, Sammy Sosa, Chipper Jones and Albert Pujols. Mays hit 50 or more home runs in both 1955 and 1965. This time span represents the longest stretch between 50 plus home run seasons for any player in Major League Baseball history.

Ted Williams once said "They invented the All-Star Game for Willie Mays."^[9][10]

Early life[link]

Mays was born in Westfield, Alabama, just outside of Birmingham, Alabama. His father, who was named for president William Howard Taft, was a talented baseball player with the Negro team for the local iron plant.^[11] His mother, Annie Satterwhite, was a gifted basketball and track star in high school.^[12] His parents never married each other.^[12] As a baby he was cared for by his mother's younger sisters Sarah and Ernestine. Sarah became the primary female role model in Mays' life.^[13] His father exposed him to baseball at an early age, and by the age of five he was playing catch with his father.^[14] At age 10, Mays was allowed to sit on the bench of his father's Industrial League games.^[15]

Mays was gifted in multiple sports, averaging a high-for-the-era 17 points a game for the Fairfield Industrial H.S. basketball team, and more than 40 yards a punt in football. He also starred at quarterback. He graduated from Fairfield in 1950.

Early professional career[link]

Negro leagues[link]

Mays' professional baseball career began in 1947, when he was still in high school, when he played briefly with the Chattanooga Choo-Choos in Tennessee during the summer, after school had let out. Shortly thereafter, Mays left the Choo-Choos, returned to his home state, and joined the Birmingham Black Barons of the Negro American League. Mays helped the Black Barons win their pennant and advance to the 1948 Negro League World Series, where they lost 4 games to 1 to the Homestead Grays. Mays hit just .226 for the season, but his excellent fielding and baserunning made him a useful player. However, by playing professionally with the Black Barons, Mays jeopardized his opportunities to play high school sports in Alabama state competition, and this created some problems for him with high school administration at Fairfield, which wanted him on their teams, to sell tickets and help teams win.^[16]

Over the next several years, a number of Major League baseball franchises sent scouts to watch him play. The first was the Boston Braves. The scout who found him, Bud Maughn, referred him to the Braves, but they declined. Had the team taken an interest, the Braves franchise might have had Mays and Hank Aaron together in its outfield from 1954 to 1973. The Brooklyn Dodgers also scouted him, but concluded he could not hit the curve ball. Maughn then tipped a scout for the New York Giants, which signed Mays in 1950 and assigned him to their Class-B affiliate in Trenton, New Jersey.^[17]

Minor leagues[link]

After Mays had a batting average of .353 in Trenton, N.J., he began the 1951 season with the class AAA Minneapolis Millers of the American Association. During his short time span in Minneapolis, Mays played with two other future Hall of Famers, Hoyt Wilhelm and Ray Dandridge. Batting .477 in 35 games and playing excellent defense, Mays was called up to the Giants on May 24, 1951; he appeared in his first major league game the next day in Philadelphia. Mays moved to Harlem, New York, where his mentor was a New York State Boxing Commission official and former Harlem Rens basketball legend Frank "Strangler" Forbes.

Major leagues[link]

New York Giants (1951–57)[link]

Mays began his major league career with no hits in his first twelve at bats. On his thirteenth at bat, he hit a homer over the left field fence of the Polo Grounds off future Hall of Famer Warren Spahn.^[18] Spahn later joked, "I'll never forgive myself. We might have gotten rid of Willie forever if I'd only struck him out." Mays' average improved steadily throughout the rest of the season. Although his .274 average, 68 RBI and 20 homers (in 121 games) were among the lowest of his career, he still won the 1951 Rookie of the Year Award. During the Giants' comeback in August and September 1951 to overtake the Dodgers in the 1951 pennant race, Mays' fielding, and great arm were often instrumental to several important Giants victories.^[19] Mays ended the regular season in the on-deck circle when Bobby Thomson hit the Shot Heard 'Round the World against the Brooklyn Dodgers, to win the three-game playoff by 2 games to 1, after the teams had tied at the end of the regular season.

The Giants went on to meet the New York Yankees in the 1951 World Series. Mays was part of the first all African-American outfield in major league history, along with Hank Thompson and Hall of Famer Monte Irvin in Game One of the 1951 World Series.^[20] Mays hit poorly, while the Giants lost the series four games to two. The six-game set was the only time that Mays and the aging Joe DiMaggio would play on the same field.^[21]

Mays was a popular figure in Harlem. Magazine photographers were fond of chronicling his participation in local stickball games with kids. It was said that in the urban game of hitting a rubber ball with an adapted broomstick handle, Mays could hit a shot that measured "six sewers" (the distance of six consecutive NYC manhole covers, nearly 300 feet).^[22][23]

The United States Army drafted Mays in 1952, and he subsequently missed most of the 1952 season and all of the 1953 season. Despite the Korean War, Mays spent most of his time in the army playing baseball at Fort Eustis, Virginia.^[24] Mays missed about 266 games due to military service.

Mays returned to the Giants in 1954, hitting for a league-leading .345 batting average and slugging 41 home runs. Mays won the National League Most Valuable Player Award and the Hickok Belt as top professional athlete of the year. In addition, the Giants won the National League pennant and the 1954 World Series, sweeping the Cleveland Indians in four games. The 1954 series is perhaps best remembered for "The Catch", an over-the-shoulder running grab by Mays in deep center field of the Polo Grounds of a long drive off the bat of Vic Wertz during the eighth inning of Game 1. Considered the iconic image of Mays' playing career and one of baseball's most memorable fielding plays,^[25] the catch prevented two Indian runners from scoring, preserving a tie game. The Giants won the game in the 10th inning, with Mays scoring the winning run. The Giants went on to win the 1954 World Series, the New York Giants' last championship. 56 years later, the San Francisco Giants won the World Series in 2010, their first after relocation.

Willie Mays in 1954.

Mays went on to perform at a high level each of the last three years the Giants were in New York. In 1956, he hit 36 homers and stole 40 bases, being only the second player and first National League player to join the "30-30 club". In 1957, the first season the Gold Glove award was presented, he won the first of twelve consecutive Gold Glove Awards. At the same time, Mays continued to finish in the NL's top five in a variety of offensive categories. Mays, Roberto Clemente (also with twelve), Al Kaline, Andruw Jones, and Ken Griffey, Jr. are the only outfielders to have ten or more career Gold Gloves. In 1957, Mays become the fourth player in Major League history to join the 20–20–20 club (2B, 3B, HR), a feat no player had performed since 1941. Mays also stole 38 bases that year, making him only the second player in baseball history (after Frank Schulte in 1911) to reach 20 in each of those four categories (doubles, triples, homers, steals) in the same season.

San Francisco Giants (1958–72)[link]

After the 1957 season, the Giants franchise and Mays relocated to San Francisco, California. Mays bought two homes in San Francisco, then lived in nearby Atherton.^[26][27] 1958 found Mays vying for the NL batting title, down to the final game of the season, just as in 1954. Mays collected three hits in the game, to finish with a career-high .347, but Philadelphia Phillies' Richie Ashburn won the title with a .350 average. In 1959 the Giants led by two games with only eight games to play, but could only win two of their remaining games and finished fourth, as their pitching staff collapsed due to overwork of their top hurlers. The Dodgers won the pennant following a playoff with the Milwaukee Braves.^[28] As he did in New York, Willie Mays would "play around" with kids playing sandlot ball in San Francisco. On three occasions, in 1959 or 1960, he visited Julius Kahn Playground, five blocks from where he lived, once with other Giants (Jim Davenport and Tom Haller).

Alvin Dark was hired to manage the Giants before the start of the 1961 season, and named Mays team captain. The improving Giants finished '61 in third place and won 85 games, more than any of the previous six campaigns. Mays had one of his best games on April 30, 1961, hitting four home runs against the Milwaukee Braves in County Stadium. Mays went 4 for 5 at the plate and was on deck for a chance to hit a record fifth home run when the Giants' half of the ninth inning ended.^[29][30] Mays is the only Major Leaguer to have both a three-triple game and a four-HR game.^[31][32]

The Giants won the National League pennant in 1962, with Mays leading the team in eight offensive categories. The team finished the regular season in a tie for first place with the Los Angeles Dodgers, and went on to win a three-game playoff series versus the Dodgers, advancing to play in the World Series. The Giants lost to the Yankees in seven games, and Mays hit just .250 with only two extra-base hits. It was his last World Series appearance as a member of the Giants.

In both the 1963 and 1964 seasons Mays batted in over 100 runs, and hit 85 total home runs. On July 2, 1963, Mays played in a game when future Hall of Fame members Warren Spahn and Juan Marichal each threw 15 scoreless innings. In the bottom of the 16th inning, Mays hit a home run off Spahn for a 1–0 Giants victory.^[33]

Mays won his second MVP award in 1965 behind a career-high 52 home runs. He also hit career home run number 500 on September 13, 1965, off Don Nottebart. Warren Spahn, off whom Mays hit his first career home run, was his teammate at the time. After the home run, Spahn greeted Mays in the dugout, asking "Was it anything like the same feeling?" Mays replied "It was exactly the same feeling. Same pitch, too."^[34] On August 22, 1965, Mays and Sandy Koufax acted as peacemakers during a 14-minute brawl between the Giants and Dodgers after San Francisco pitcher Juan Marichal had bloodied Dodgers catcher John Roseboro with a bat.^[35]

Mays played in over 150 games for 13 consecutive years (a major-league record) from 1954 to 1966. In 1966, his last with 100 RBIs, Mays finished third in the NL MVP voting. It was the ninth and final time he finished in the top five in the voting for the award.^[36] In 1970, the Sporting News named Mays as the "Player of the Decade" for the 1960s.

Willie hit career home run No. 600 off San Diego's Mike Corkins in September 1969. Plagued by injuries that season, he managed only 13 home runs. Mays enjoyed a resurgence in 1970, hitting 28 homers and got off to a fast start in 1971, the year he turned 40. He had 15 home runs at the All-Star break, but faded down the stretch and finished with 18. Mays helped the Giants win the West division title that year, but they lost the NLCS to the Pittsburgh Pirates.

During his time on the Giants, Mays was friends with fellow player Bobby Bonds. When Bobby's son, Barry Bonds, was born, Bobby asked Willie Mays to be Barry's godfather. Mays and the younger Bonds have maintained a close relationship ever since.

New York Mets (1972–73)[link]

In May 1972, the 41-year-old Mays was traded to the New York Mets for pitcher Charlie Williams and $50,000 ($277,804 today).^[37] At the time, the Giants franchise was losing money. Owner Horace Stoneham could not guarantee Mays an income after retirement and the Mets offered Mays a position as a coach upon his retirement.^[38]

Mays had remained popular in New York long after the Giants had left for San Francisco, and the trade was seen as a public relations coup for the Mets. Mets owner Joan Whitney Payson, who was a minority shareholder of the Giants when the team was in New York, had long desired to bring Mays back to his baseball roots, and was instrumental in making the trade.^[39] On May 14, 1972, in his Mets debut, Mays put New York ahead to stay with a fifth-inning home run against Don Carrithers and his former team, the Giants, on a rainy Sunday afternoon at Shea Stadium. Then on August 17, 1973, in a game against the Cincinnati Reds with Don Gullett on the mound, Willie hit a fourth inning solo home run over the right center field fence. This was the 660th and last of his illustrious major league career.