Willie Mays, the dazzling “Say Hey Kid” whose unique blend of talent, determination, and passion helped him become one of baseball’s greatest and most adored players, has died. He was 93.
Mays’ family and the San Francisco Giants notified Tuesday night that he died earlier that afternoon in the Bay Area.
“My father died peacefully and surrounded by loved ones,” son Michael Mays said in a statement posted by the club. “I want to thank you all from the bottom of my broken heart for the unfailing love you’ve shown him throughout the years. “You’ve been his lifeblood.”
The center fielder began his professional career in the Negro Leagues in 1948 and was baseball’s oldest living Hall of Famer. He was elected to the Hall of Fame in 1979, his first year of eligibility, and in 1999, he was ranked second only to Babe Ruth on The Sporting News’ list of the game’s greatest players. The Giants retired his uniform number 24 and built AT&T Park in San Francisco on Willie Mays Plaza.
Mays died two days before the Giants’ game against the St. Louis Cardinals to honor the Negro Leagues at Rickwood Field in Birmingham, Alabama.
“All of Major League Baseball is in mourning today as we are gathered at the very ballpark where a career and a legacy like no other began,” Rob Manfred, the commissioner, said. “Willie Mays transferred his all-around brilliance from the Birmingham Black Barons of the Negro American League to the storied Giants team. From coast to coast, Willie inspired generations of players and fans as the game grew and fully earned its status as our National Pastime.”
Few people were blessed with all five of the fundamental traits of a superstar: hitting for average, hitting for power, speed, fielding, and throwing. Few players exuded excitement as much as he did, whether he was blasting home runs, running around the bases with his loose-fitting cap flying off his head, or chasing down fly balls in center field and finishing the job with his characteristic basket catch.
Willie Mays, The Giants’ Electrifying ‘Say Hey Kid,’ Dies At 93
Mays batted for 23 big league seasons, the majority of which were spent with the New York/San Francisco Giants but one in the Negro Leagues.301, 660 home runs, 3,293 hits, almost 2,000 runs scored, and 12 Gold Glove awards. He won Rookie of the Year in 1951, was awarded Most Valuable Player twice, and finished in the top ten for MVP ten times. His lightning-fast dash and over-the-shoulder grab of an apparent extra-base hit in the 1954 World Series is still baseball’s most famous defensive play.
“When I played ball, I tried to make sure everybody enjoyed what I was doing,” Mays told NPR in 2010. “I had the clubhouse guy fit me a cap so that as I ran, the wind got up in the bottom and it flew straight off. People enjoy such kind of stuff.”
For millions in the 1950s, 1960s, and beyond, the smiling ballplayer with the cheerful, high-pitched voice was a hallmark athlete and showman in an era when baseball was still the national pastime. Mays, who received the Medal of Freedom from President Obama in 2015, had a lasting impression on his supporters. But a single feat captured his charm, one so unrivaled that it was simply dubbed “The Catch.”
In Game 1 of the 1954 World Series, the then-New York Giants faced the Cleveland Indians, who had won 111 games in the regular season and were heavy favorites in the postseason. The score was 2-2 in the top of the eighth inning. Vic Wertz of Cleveland faced reliever Don Liddle with no outs, Larry Doby on second, and Al Rosen on first.
With the count 1-2, Wertz blasted a fastball into deep center field. Wertz would have homered or had an easy triple in an ordinary park with an average center fielder. However, the center field wall in the unusually shaped Polo Grounds was more than 450 feet away. Willie Mays’ skills were everything but average.
Decades of video replays haven’t dulled the thrill of seeing Mays rush towards the wall, his back to home plate, reach out his glove and catch the drive. What happened was also remarkable: Mays could swivel around while still moving forward, hurl the ball to the infield, and prevent Doby from scoring even as she spun. Mays proudly stated that “the throw” was as essential as “the catch.”
Willie Mays, The Giants’ Electrifying ‘Say Hey Kid,’ Dies At 93
“Soon as it got hit, I knew I’d catch the ball,” Mays said author James S. Hirsch, whose book was published in 2010.
“All the time I’m running back, I’m thinking, ‘Willie, you’ve got to get this ball back to the infield.'”
Millions of people saw and heard “The Catch” on radio and television, and Mays became one of the first Black athletes to get widespread media attention. He appeared as a guest on “The Donna Reed Show,” “Bewitched,” and several other comedies. He inspired a few songs and was named first in Terry Cashman’s 1980s novelty tune “Talkin’ Baseball (Willie, Mickey & The Duke),” which was a tribute to the brief era when New York had three future Hall of Famers in the centre: Mays, Mantle of the Yankees, and Snider of the Brooklyn Dodgers.
The Giants went on to sweep the Indians, with many crediting Mays’ performance as a turning moment. The impression was so powerful that 63 years later, in 2017, baseball named him the World Series Most Valuable Player, even though it was his lone playoff memorable moment. He appeared in three previous World Series, for the Giants in 1951 and 1962 and the Mets in 1973, batting 239 with no home runs in all four. (His only postseason home run came in the 1971 National League playoffs when the Giants lost to the Pittsburgh Pirates.
But “The Catch” and his regular-season performances were impressive enough. Yankees and Dodgers fans may have hotly contested Mays’ dominance, but Mantle and Snider did not. At a 1995 baseball writers’ dinner in Manhattan, with all three on the dais, Mantle asked the age-old question: which of the three was better?
“We don’t mind being second, do we, Duke?” He added.
From 1954 to 1966, Mays drove in 100 or more runs ten times, scored 100 or more twelve times, hit 40 or more home runs six times, more than 50 home runs twice, and led the league in stolen bases four times. His numbers might have been higher. He missed most of 1952 and all of 1953 due to military service, which may have cost him the opportunity to break Ruth’s career home run record of 714, which had previously been held by Henry Aaron and Mays’ godson, Barry Bonds. He won more Gold Gloves if the award had been founded before 1956. He said he could have led the league in steals more frequently if he had tried.
“I’m completely devastated and overtaken with grief. “I have no words to express how much you mean to me,” Bonds wrote on Instagram.
Willie Mays, The Giants’ Electrifying ‘Say Hey Kid,’ Dies At 93
Mays was lucky to avoid catastrophic harm and a huge controversy but faced personal and professional challenges. His first marriage, with Margherita Wendell, ended in divorce. He was frequently short on money during the pre-free agent period, and he received less for sponsorships than Mantle and other white athletes. He was subjected to racial slurs, and his assertion that he was an entertainer rather than a spokesman prompted Jackie Robinson and others to criticize him for not contributing more to the civil rights cause. He didn’t like some of his managers and didn’t always appreciate his idols, particularly Aaron, his greatest contemporary.
“When Henry began to soar up the home-run chart, Willie was loathe to give even a partial nod to Henry’s ability, choosing instead to blame his own performance on his home turf, (San Francisco’s) Candlestick Park, saying it was a lousy park in which to hit homers and this was the reason for Henry’s onrush,” Howard Bryant, Aaron’s biographer, wrote in 2010.
Admirers of Aaron, who died in 2021, argue that only his calm demeanor and geographical distance from major media centers — Aaron played in Atlanta and Milwaukee — prevented him from being rated alongside, if not ahead of, Mays. However, Mays was regarded as the most important player in baseball. He was the game’s highest-paid player for 11 seasons (according to the Society for American Baseball Research), and he frequently batted first in All-Star Games because he was Willie Mays. From center field, he called pitches and positioned other players. He boasted that while determining whether to try for an extra base, he followed his instincts rather than any instructor’s.
Barney Kremenko, a sports writer, is commonly credited with calling Mays “The Say Hey Kid,” which refers to his passionate approach to greeting his teammates. Moments on and off the pitch solidified the public’s adoration. In 1965, Mays broke up a horrific altercation after teammate Juan Marichal hit Los Angeles Dodgers catcher John Roseboro with a bat. Mays walked a bloodied Roseboro away and sat by him on the Dodgers’ clubhouse bench, the Giants’ bitter rivals.
SOURCE – (AP)
