If you can help us improve this player's biography, contact us. He could do the five things you have to do to be a superstar: And he had the other magic ingredient that turns a superstar into a super Superstar.

He lit up a room when he came in. He was a joy to be around. Mike Lupica, longtime columnist for the New York Daily News, quoted the late Boston columnist George Frazier on the combination and star power of an athlete such as Mays. With Mays it is not merely what he did — but how he did it.

He scored more than 2, runs, nearly all of them, it would seem, after losing his cap flying around third base. He is credited with more than 7, outfield putouts, many exciting, some spectacular, a few breathtaking. How do you measure that? An artist and a genius, for most of his 22 seasons in the big leagues, you simply could not keep your eyes off Willie Mays. The elder Mays worked in the steel mills of Westfield, Alabama, outside Birmingham.

Nicknamed Kitty-Kat or Cat, he was a semipro baseball player for the Westfield entry in the Tennessee Coal and Iron League. Anna gave birth to the third-generation Mays ballplayer, Willie Howard Mays, on May 6, Despite these stories, Mays claims that his father did not push him to be a ballplayer. Willie stayed with his father after his parents separated. When he was 10 years old the family moved from a company-owned house in Westfield to Fairfield, another suburb of Birmingham. Willie attended Fairfield Industrial High School, where he was trained to be a cleaner or presser for a laundry.

He starred as a football quarterback and averaged 20 points per game in basketball. The school did not have a baseball team, so he played second base and center field alongside his father on the Fairfield Industrial League team and the semipro Gray Sox. Needless to say, both teams were solely African-American, as were their opponents and their fans. These games drew as many as 6, fans. Willie excelled in the Industrial League and, briefly infor a Negro minor-league team called the Chattanooga Choo-Choos, essentially a farm team for the Birmingham Black Barons of the Negro American League.

When he turned 16, Cat introduced him to Piper Davis, the manager of the Black Barons. Ineligible to play high-school sports, he was by far the youngest player on the defending champions of the Negro American League. Even at 16 years old, Mays played the outfield like a more experienced player.

Upon his recovery, Robinson found himself in left field. According to the Biographical Encyclopedia of the Negro LeaguesMays batted. Mays recalled his first meeting with Satchel Paige: I stood on second, dusted myself off, feeling pretty good. Paige walked toward me. Even at the tender age of 17, Willie came up big in big spots. In the Negro American League playoff series against the Kansas City Monarchs, his two-out, bases-loaded single in the bottom of the 11th broke a tie and gave the Black Barons a Game One victory.

His double in the bottom of the ninth in Game Two drove in future Giants teammate Artie Wilson with the tying run that sent the contest into extra innings. Another ninth-inning double in Game Three seems to have preceded a game-winning homer by teammate Jimmy Zapp, but the details are sketchy. What is not sketchy is that the Black Barons won three consecutive one-run games before the series moved to Kansas City. Mays tripled and scored in a losing effort in Game Seven there had been one rain-shortened tie and made the final putout in the clincher.

Willie played in the final Negro League World Series in when the Black Barons lost to the Homestead Grays. In Game Three of the Series, he made two sparking defensive plays, chasing down a Bob Thurman fly in the fourth and gunning down Buck Leonard trying to go from first to third in the sixth.

A scorching single through the box in the ninth drove in Bill Greason with the winning run for a Birmingham victory. With more major-league teams developing an interest in signing young black players, Mays was obviously attracting attention. After the season Dodgers catcher Roy Campanella led a barnstorming team in the South. In a game between the barnstormers and the Black Barons, Mays threw Larry Doby out at the plate after catching a fly ball near the center-field fence. This impressed Campy, and he begged the Dodgers to send scouts down to sign Willie.

The scouting report filed by Wid Matthews echoed Buck Leonard: Leo Durocher wrote in his book Nice Guys Finish Last that Montague reported.

You better send somebody down there with a barrelful of money and grab this kid. Willie concludes in his autobiography, Say Hey: Since I was a minor, my father signed too. Instead of Sioux City, Willie was sent to Trenton of the Class B Interstate League. Nevertheless, Mays thought the level of competition in the Interstate League was far below what he had seen with the Black Barons. Before he could leave Birmingham, Mays gave a friend some money to take his date to the prom.

That taken care of, Mays played his first game in June in Hagerstown, Maryland, one of the league cities below the Mason-Dixon Line. His manager at Trenton, Chick Genovese, started him in center field. In a interview with a nonprofit organization that recognizes achievers, Mays recalled: And we played in a town called Hagerstown, Maryland.

I said to myself Mays experienced collapses from fatigue late in the year after several consecutive doubleheaders. After going hitless in his first four games in Hagerstown, Willie wound up with hits in 81 games, batting. Clearly, he was ready for a higher level of competition. The major-league team trained in Lakeland, Florida, and their minor-league camp was in nearby Sanford. In the arranged match, Mays hit a double and a long home run.

Durocher began lobbying for Mays to play for the big club immediately, but owner Horace Stoneham resisted. The New York Giants won two of their first three games but then lost 11 in a row, while Willie collected 12 hits in his first week with Minneapolis and played a spectacular center field.

Mays, unaware of this, played still better. The Millers had an offday, and Willie went to a movie theater. Manager Tommy Heath informed Mays that he had been called up to the Giants. Durocher, speechless for perhaps the first time in his life, finally broke his silence and asked Mays what he was hitting.

The Giants werein fifth place, on May 25, the day Willie joined the team at Shibe Park. Durocher immediately installed the year-old in center field. The Giants won all three of the games in Philadelphia, though Mays was hitless in his first 12 at-bats. After the homer, Mays went on a 0-for slide, leaving him hitting. At this point, in an often-told story, Willie sat in front of his locker, crying, after taking the collar again.

Coaches Freddie Fitzsimmons and Herman Franks sent for Durocher. Willie then went on a for tear. For a year-old from the Deep South, living in Manhattan could have been overwhelming. The Giants took good care of him, setting him up in the Harlem rooming house of David and Anna Goosby at St. Nicholas Avenue and th Street, not far from the Polo Grounds. Willie, still very much a big kid, ate many meals there and Anna washed his clothes.

Neighbors often waited outside for Willie to arrive home. His stickball-playing reputation was forged in those early days. Well, actually, you could. As Hinckley wrote, this was not some publicity stunt; he actually played. On August 30,Willie hit two home runs in one game against the Pirates at the Polo Grounds, and then homered in a stickball game later that day.

It was not always clear who was babysitting whom. On road trips they would eat together, play catch, go to movies, and read comic books. Police in Cincinnati once stopped them to ask what a white child was doing with a black man. A call to Durocher cleared up the matter. One of the many outstanding defensive plays of his rookie season came at Pittsburgh. Rocky Nelson hit a shot to deepest center field, and Mays tracked it down looking over his shoulder, but the ball hooked away from his glove.

He caught the ball barehanded on the dead run. The Giants were playing better, but the Dodgers were running away with the league.

Willie was kneeling in the on-deck circle when Thomson hit his homer in the bottom of the ninth in Game Three, and by his own admission, was still frozen there as Thomson rounded second. The year-old was on his way to the World Series. Mays had made good on his vow to hit.

In each generation, there are one or two players like that, men who are winning players because of their own ability and their own On his return to the Jim Crow South after the season, the first place he visited was the Woolworth lunch counter where Aunt Ernestine worked.

Starting the season, Willie batted just. The Giants promptly lost eight of ten and were never a factor in the pennant race. The Army sent Willie to Fort Eustis, Virginia, and assigned him to play baseball for the most part. According to Mays, Durocher kept an eye on him from afar, chiding him when he stole a base with his team leading and sending him money from time to time.

The August 13,edition of Jet magazine reported that Mays broke a bone in his foot sliding into third base in an Army game and would wear a cast for five weeks. Mays recalled that he also sprained his ankle in a basketball game, prompting another call from Durocher, telling him to stay off the court. Willie estimated that he played games while in the service. When he returned to the Giants in the spring ofhe was a half-inch taller and ten pounds heavier, now 5-feet and pounds.

This optimism is remarkable; how is it possible that one player could make up the 35 games and four places in the standings that the Giants finished behind the Dodgers? On the other hand, Willie had yet to celebrate his 23rd birthday. In an article about Mays written after his retirement, Roger Angell of the New Yorker recalled a spring training wager with Cleveland columnist Whitey Lewis, who claimed that Mays would not bat.

Whether or not it was a coincidence, writers and teammates clearly associated Mays with winning. Antonelli was just 24, and finished a solid for Milwaukee in The Giants needed another starter, but few would have predicted that Antonelli would lead the league in ERA and win 21 games, one of the key reasons the Giants won 97 games and captured the pennant.

The main reason was the center fielder, who became the player Leo Durocher confidently suggested that he would be. Before the season, Durocher predicted a. Willie hit only five more homers the rest of the year, but batted. Although the Dodgers hung tough all season, the Giants clinched the pennant in the final week and won by five games.

Willie Mays was back in the World Series, this time as a certified star. Going into the final day of the season, teammate Don Mueller was hitting a league-leading. Mays finished 3-for-4, Mueller 2-for-6, and Snider 0-for After the games, Mays was batting.

In addition to his batting title, Mays hit 41 home runs, drove in runs, and led the league in triples 13 and slugging percentage. To put this statistic into perspective, consider the period from throughbracketed between two live-ball eras. He is the third youngest National Leaguer to receive the award.

With the score tied,in the top of the eighth inning, the Indians put their first two runners on. Although Maglie had allowed just seven hits, Vic Wertz, the next batter, had already tripled and singled twice. Accordingly, Durocher brought in left-hander Don Liddle to face the left-handed-swinging Wertz. Willie sprinted directly away from the batter and ran it down in the deepest part of the park, catching it over his shoulder like a receiver taking a long pass from his quarterback.

At least as impressive as the catch was what happened next: As Arnold Hano described it in A Day in the Bleachers: What an astonishing throw.

This was the throw of a giant, the throw of a howitzer made human. Liddle, having retired Wertz, was relieved by Marv Grissom after Cleveland manager Al Lopez sent up a right-handed hitter. Many observers believed that play was the defining moment in the Series.

The catch clearly saved the first game, as the Giants prevailed,in the tenth inning, and may have provided the momentum they needed to sweep heavily favored Cleveland in four games. Mays himself felt that other catches he made were better.

For example, he mentions one in Ebbets Field in on a ball hit by Bobby Morgan. Willie remembered this catch in a interview:. And it was in the seventh inning, two men on, [two out,] a ball was hit over the shortstop — over the line — over the shortstop. I go and catch the ball in the air. I catch the ball, I hit the fence. So I catch the fence, knock myself out.

And the first guy that I saw — there were two guys — when I open my eyes, was Leo and Jackie. Now this is my thinking, he may have a different reason. That was my best catch, I think. It was off of Bobby Morgan in Ebbets Field. I caught a lot of balls barehanded, which I felt was good, but that was my best catch, I think. Mays also recalled a catch he made in Trenton in He said that Lou Heyman of Wilmington hit a ball feet types of incentive stock options dead center and he caught it barehanded, bounced off the wall, and threw the ball all the way home on the fly.

Between the and seasons, Willie played in the Puerto Rican League for the Santurce Crabbers, managed by Giants coach Herman Franks. He was in the same outfield as the young and relatively unknown Roberto Clemente, a daunting prospect for opposing pitchers and baserunners. Mays batted a league-leading. Willie recounted that he played for the team as a favor to Franks and Giants owner Horace Stoneham, whose friend owned the forex club forum. Willie was the seventh player in baseball history to hit more than 50 homers in a season, and Durocher actually had told him to start trying for the fences, contradicting the instructions of the previous year.

He also led the NL in triples and slugging average and was second in stolen bases with 24 in 28 attempts, a success rate of better than 85 percent. The club announced that he would be replaced by former infielder Bill Rigney for Durocher recalled the last game forex software reviews blogs he and Mays were on the same team.

On the final day of the season, during a doubleheader against the Philadelphia Phillies in the Polo Grounds, Durocher called Willie into stock market random walk small bathroom just off the dugout. Some considered it showboating, but Mays felt that it helped him keep his eye on the ball and position his feet to throw. Willie led the NL in outfield assists in with 23, and in double plays with 8.

Willie was widely recognized as the best all-around player in the National League during the s. His defensive prowess and howitzer throwing arm were already established. His 40 steals that year were the most in the majors since His four-year totals 40, 38, 31, 27 were punctuated by a 77 percent success rate. On May 6,his 25th birthday, Mays stole four bases in a Giants victory. During the years the average team stole fewer than 40 bases per season, 75 percent less than in the Deadball Era.

She had been married twice before, once to a member of the singing group the Ink Spots. In Willie and Marguerite adopted a five-day-old baby whom they named Michael, but the marriage forex worldwide forum be troubled. The next season he increased his average to. Besides his stolen bases, Mays became the fourth player in the 20th century to amass 20 or more doubles, triples, and home runs in the same season.

During the season, the unemployed Functions of bombay stock exchange of india Durocher publicly criticized the Giants and Rigney, while still praising his old s&p 500 emini futures quotes fielder. In their final home game at the Polo Grounds, on September 29, the Giants lost to the last-place Pirates, After the season the Giants left New York for San Francisco, while the Dodgers moved to Los Angeles, depriving New York of National League ball for the first time since The new city did not exactly greet Mays with open arms.

They cheer Khrushchev and boo Mays. Mays recalled that a real-estate broker withdrew his offer on a home because of pressure from other homeowners in the neighborhood.

Mayor George Christopher apologized and offered to share his home with Willie and Marghuerite. In mid-November, they moved into the original house; almost immediately someone threw a brick through a window. Charles Einstein suggested three factors: He had the temerity to play center field in Seals Stadium, where the native-born DiMaggio had played it in his minor-league days. Also, Mays was black.

The brick that crashed through his window almost as soon as he moved in had to reflect at least one of these viewpoints, if moneymaker strain review all three. Here are their statistics for Willie led the league in runs scored and stolen bases while winning another Gold Glove.

He almost won the batting title as well; going into the last game of the season, he was neck-and-neck with the eventual winner, Phillies Hall of Famer Maybank forex trading Ashburn.

Rigney batted Mays leadoff in the final game, hoping to give him more at-bats and a shot at the title. He went 3-for-5, including a double and a home run, but Ashburn finished 3-for-4 and wound up at. He was so tired that during a road trip to Philadelphia he was admitted to a New York hospital and was told there was nothing physically wrong, but that he needed to rest.

In Willie kumpulan indikator forex mt4 his first brushes with serious injury. With the team in first place in early August, Mays broke his right pinkie sliding back to first base after a long single.

While he still hit 16 more homers the rest of the way, the Giants as a team tailed off, finishing in third place, four games behind the Los Angeles Dodgers, who went on to win the World Series. Mays hit 34 home runs and batted. Chicago Cub Ernie Banks won back-to-back NL MVP awards in and He was so exciting — not only exciting to the fans, but to the teams he played with — the Giants — and against.

He was just amazing. After struggling their final years in New York, the San Francisco Giants began to introduce a string of players who would form the core of one of the finest squads never to win a championship — the Giants of the all you need to know about short term binary options. After Cepeda inWillie McCovey came up inwinning the Giants their third Rookie of the Year award in nine years.

Mays and McCovey would form as potent a left-right power duo as ever played together. They were joined by third baseman Jim Davenport, shortstop Jose Pagan, catcher 60 second binary options signals queen review Haller, and second baseman Chuck Hiller, pitchers Juan Marichal and Gaylord Perry, and three outfielder brothers from the Dominican Republic, Felipe, Matty, and Jesus Alou.

But San Francisco played in only one World Series, losing to the Yankees in in seven games. Although he won two MVP awards, in andhe could have won virtually any year in between as well, since he seemed to have the same season every year.

He played in 24 All-Star Games, and these were not just token appearances -- he started 18 games in center field, and 11 times played the entire game. By midcareer he was not merely a star player, but was often considered the starthe greatest player ever.

Ian McElhinney - IMDb

The night before, Mays and roommate McCovey ate a midnight snack of room-service spare ribs. Mays experienced sharp stomach pains and called for team trainer Doc Bowman.

When Willie arrived at the ballpark, he took batting practice but reported feeling very weak. After lining out against Moe Drabowsky in the fifth inning, he hit another round-tripper off lefty Seth Morehead in the sixth. Finally, in the eighth inning, he hit his fourth home run of the day, off Don McMahon. He finished 4-for-5 with 8 RBIs and missed a chance for a fifth homer when the top of the ninth ended with him on deck. Two months later, on June 29, Mays once again showed his all-around abilities in leading the Giants to a doubleheader sweep at Philadelphia.

In the first game, he hit three homers, including the game-winner in the tenth inning of the first game, becoming the fourth player with three or more home runs twice in one season. In the nightcap Mays tripled and doubled, while also gunning down a runner at the plate in one of three double plays in which he would participate in the season. Overall, just another Mays omx exchange holidays The Dodgers had a one-game buy disney paper stock certificates when Koufax went down, but valiantly held on.

Mays had game binary options iphone apps own health woes. In the second inning of a September 12 game in Cincinnati, Mays, feeling hot and dizzy, fainted in the dugout.

Revived by Doc Bowman, he was carried away on a stretcher and sent to a hospital. He was diagnosed with tension and exhaustion, and rest was prescribed. On the last day of the season, the Giants needed to beat the expansion Houston Colt.

Batting in the eighth inning of a tie, Mays hit his 47th home run to secure the victory. In How much did billy mays make a year Angeles, the Dodgers cooperated by losing to a Curt Simmons five-hitter.

In the stock market corn game of the xmas packing jobs from home playoff series, Mays finished with two home runs and a walk, pacing the Giants to an victory.

His 49 home runs gave him the senior fx dealer job description title for the first time since ; the two in the extra playoff games allowed him to pass Harmon Killebrew, who had 48 round-trippers.

The Giants lost the second game,leaving 13 runners on base. Willie finishedbut gunned down Maury Wills at third base in the sixth inning. In the clincher the Giants trailed when the team came to bat in the top of the ninth. The team rallied for four runs on two singles, four walks, and an error.

The Giants and Yankees met in the World Series for the seventh time, but the first since the Giants books for forex trader west. The Yankees won in seven games. Mays was left on base carrying the winning run when Willie McCovey lined out to end the Series. After the World Series Willie checked into Mount Zion Hospital in San Francisco to see if there was a reason for his physical collapses.

Three days of tests produced no conclusive diagnosis; however, Mays undeniably had a great deal on his plate at that time. Besides the pennant race, he was in the middle of a divorce from Marghuerite. She had filed a separate-maintenance suit in and the couple, deep in debt, nearly filed for bankruptcy. His Loneliness and Fulfillment. I want to have a family of my own. I have a son and love him, but Michael lives with his mother in New York, and I get to see him only once wynn stock options twice a year.

I want a wife who will love me for myself, because I am Willie Mays, a person, not Willie Mays, a good ballplayer. On the field he was the same old Mays. In he managed 49 homers and RBIs the most in his careerand batted. His health issues did not go away, however, and the strain continued to show.

On a trip to Chicago, Mays broke down crying in his hotel room and had the shakes. Doc Bowman gave him sleeping pills and Alvin Dark brought Mays to his room to sleep that night. Despite his troubles off the field, Willie maintained a high level of play.

In the July 2 game against the Braves, he homered in the 16th inning, providing the only run in a Giants win. Juan Marichal bested Warren Spahn. Both pitchers went the distance.

Willie Mays Quotes

In the All-Star Game, Willie went 1-for-3, drove in two runs, scored two, and stole two bases in the NL victory. He also made a spectacular running catch in the forex mentor tips inning, depriving Joe Pepitone of an extra-base hit.

Mays also garnered the award inbecoming the first player to win it twice. The Giants wound up 11 games out of first inbut no one could blame the center fielder: Alvin Dark clearly viewed Willie with great affection.

Mays received a note shortly after Dark was named to manage the Giants in The controversy began in May when a quote from Dark appeared in a book by Jackie Robinson, Baseball Has Done It: They feel they have a responsibility to take care of them. In July the racial and ethnic tensions exploded when Dark was quoted by Stan Isaacs of the newspaper Newsday: They are just not able to perform up to the white ballplayer when it comes to mental alertness.

He told the players that changing managers during the season had been disastrous in and it would be disastrous again. Likely working with some inside information from his friends in the Giants brain trust, including vice president Charles Feeney and coach Herman Franks, he also told the players that Dark would not be back the next season, and that, live trade karachi stock exchange what the manager had said, all of them had gotten a fair shake from him.

Willie said to his teammates:. He helps us because he wants to win, and he wants the money that goes with winning. The Giants finished in fourth place, only three games back. Dark was fired on the last day of the season. Herman Franks, a Durocher crony, was named manager forand Mays was given much latitude as a field general, almost an assistant manager. You got any hard questions? On the field, the Giants responded to the firing of Alvin Dark by contending for another pennant inlosing to the Dodgers by just two games.

Though Mays turned 34 that season, he hit a career-high 52 home runs, leading the NL in on-base percentage for the first time and slugging percentage. Along the way, he won his second MVP award, 11 years after his first. He was only the fifth player to hit home runs, following Babe Ruth, Jimmie Foxx, Mel Ott, and Ted Williams. No National Leaguer had hit 50 in a season since Mays in The pennant race was marred by one of the ugliest incidents in baseball history.

When the catcher started to get out of his crouch to go after him, the enraged Marichal hit Roseboro over the head with his bat. Naturally, both benches emptied. After play resumed, the next two batters made out, two men walked, and Mays hit a three-run homer, one of his NL-record 17 round-trippers that month. Mays may have been shook, but he hit his fourth homer of the four game series [after the incident].

This man was an example of the best in any of us. In Los Angeles the Giants were booed lustily, but during his first at-bat, Mays received a tremendous standing ovation, stock market corn the rivalry and the pennant race. Initially, the Giants went into a tailspin, going in the first 12 games after the incident. But the Dodgers won 13 straight in late September to take the pennant by two games.

He was a perennial MVP contender, and many of those 12 seasons are indistinguishable from one another. The season was his first full year with the Giants, his first and only world championship and batting title, but his first of 13 consecutive seasons of or more games, his first of 12 consecutive seasons of or more runs scored, the first of five consecutive years of or more outfield putouts, and the first of 20 consecutive years making the National League All-Star team.

In addition, Willie led the league in slugging for the first of five times in his career. He led the league in on-base percentage for the first time in his career in he would lead in that category once morebut the home run and slugging titles in would be his last.

He played in 24 midsummer classics, the most of any major leaguer. Both Hank Aaron and Stan Musial also played in 24 All-Star Games.

Mays led the NL to an record in his All-Star Game career, batting. It is interesting to contrast these numbers with his postseason stats: In 25 career postseason games, he hit one homer, drove in 10 runs, and batted. Mays enjoyed his last great season in He turned 35 that year and played in games, hit 37 homers, drove in runs, and scored 99, levels he would never reach again. His RBIs marked his eighth consecutive season with or more, an NL record, although he never led the league in that category.

In each of 12 seasons,he had led the league in at least one major offensive category. For the rest of his career Mays topped the leader board only in walks and on-base percentage in Mays continued his assault on the career home-run record, passing Ted Williams in June and Jimmie Foxx in August. The Giants remained in the race until the last day of the season. Along with his other accomplishments, Willie may have helped to prevent a large-scale race riot.

Mays encouraged fans via radio ads to stay home and watch an important televised game from Atlanta. The TV did it. The aging center fielder battled flu-like symptoms for much of In July he was hospitalized again for five days after leaving a game with fever and the shakes.

He said he never felt strong the rest of the year. In an August contest, the Braves intentionally walked Jim Ray Hart to pitch to Mays. He hit a run-scoring single. At age 36, he finished with a. Both figures were his lowest in any full season to that point. Mays was starting only because of an injury to Pete Rose. He singled, moved to second on an errant pickoff throw, got to third on a wild pitch, and scored on a double play. It was his last hit in All-Star competition, though he would bat at least once in every midsummer classic until his retirement.

Willie continued to approach milestones.

He ended the season one steal shy of13 homers shy ofand hits shy of 3, The season was frustrating for Mays; the Giants finished in second place for the fifth straight year, this time three games behind Atlanta. Manager Clyde King briefly experimented with Willie in the leadoff spot, a position foreign to him, as he had batted third almost exclusively for much of his career.

He had other run-ins with King and, coupled with a knee injury, it made for an unhappy year. He also surpassed stolen bases for his career.

Prior to the season, The Sporting News named Mays Player of the Decade for the s. He started strong, hitting 19 home runs by the All-Star break. On July 18 Mays singled off Montreal pitcher Mike Wegener for his 3,th career hit. Play was halted for a ceremony, attended by Monte Irvin, Carl Hubbell, and Stan Musial, the all-time NL hits leader at the time.

Mays finished with 28 home runs and a. The team finished 16 games behind, in third place. In Willie experienced a renaissance both professionally and personally. Manager Charlie Fox used him as an additional coach to instruct the outfielders.

Mays hit his th career homer on the first pitch he saw on Opening Day. He hit home runs in the first four games of the season, the first time any player had done that. On May 6, his 40th birthday, Mays was honored at a banquet attended by such luminaries as Hank Aaron and Joe DiMaggio.

Aaron once said that Mays was a greater ballplayer than he, although he saw himself as the stronger hitter. DiMaggio once told a young ballplayer to strive for perfection on the baseball field, and that, while that is impossible, Willie Mays came the closest.

By this time Mays was reaching or eclipsing some milestone once a week. On June 6 he hit his 22nd career extra-inning homer to lead the Giants to a win over Philadelphia, earning the Giants a doubleheader split. Helping the team any way he could, Mays worked the count more, leading the league in both walks and on-base percentage. He played 84 games in center field and 48 at first base, to rest his legs. The Giants outlasted the Dodgers to win the Western Division by one game, but lost to the Pirates in the National League Championship Series.

Mays hit his only postseason home run, a two-run blast off Bob Miller, in Game Two. After the season Willie married Mae Louise Allen in Acapulco, after ten years of off-and-on dating. He originally got her phone number from Wilt Chamberlain. The season began later than scheduled because of a player strike.

While reticent in the past on commenting about controversial issues, he said this to the executive board of the union:. I love this game. None was offered, and rumors began to surface that he would be traded. When the Giants reached Philadelphia in MayNew York sportswriter Red Foley informed him he would be traded to the Mets, though it took a few days to formalize the details.

Willie would finish his career where he had started. Horace Stoneham denied that any cash was included in the deal, and maintained that he was giving Willie a financial future that the Giants, one of only a handful of family-owned teams left in the majors, could not. In the fifth inning he homered to break a tie, and the Mets won, The fans wanted to see Mays, but the manager, of course, had to put the best lineup on the field.

As a part-time player, Willie was third on the club in batting average and second in slugging, despite having the worst numbers of his career to this point: All eight of his round-trippers were with the Mets, and he played 11 of his 69 games as a Met in at first base. In preparing for spring training ofWillie had old friend Herman Franks watch him to see if anything was left in the tank. Franks told him he had one season left.

When he had second thoughts about retirement in August, he consulted Franks, who told him to stick by his original decision. He struggled at the start, hitting. He informed the Mets he would retire at the end of the season, and that the club could announce it in September. He had knee problems that required draining fluid, and favoring one leg caused problems with the other. He also had cracked ribs.

They finally escaped the cellar on August 31 but finished after that and captured an extremely compressed division. On September 25 the club had a Willie Mays Night. He resisted the honor initially for fear it would distract the team in the middle of a pennant race. After a one-hour ceremony, many gifts, and an outpouring of affection from the fans at Shea, he made his farewell speech:.

Something that I never feared: But, as you know, there always comes a time for someone to get out. And I look at these kids over there, the way they are playing, and the way they are fighting for themselves, and it tells me one thing: Willie, say goodbye to America.

Thank you very much. In the League Championship Series, he made his first appearance on the field as a peacemaker, not a player. Shea Stadium fans began heckling Rose in left field, and when a bottle flew from the stands toward him, Reds manager Sparky Anderson pulled his team off the field.

The umpires threatened the Mets with a forfeit, so Mays, Berra, and Tom Seaver, among others, walked out to left and pleaded with the fans to let the game go on. The crowd settled down, and the Mets won, Mays played only in the fifth and deciding game, but he made the most of the opportunity.

This game was invented for Willie Mays a hundred years ago. The Mets lost the Series in seven games. Many of his teammates lauded his impact. I begged him not to retire. He also did public-relations work for the Colgate-Palmolive company for 12 years. In the Baseball Writers Association of America elected Mays to the Baseball Hall of Fame in his first year of eligibility.

At his induction ceremony, he was eloquent and humble:. This country is made up of a great many things. You can grow up to be what you want. I chose baseball, and I loved every minute of it. I give you one word —love. You have to sacrifice many things to play baseball. I sacrificed a bad marriage and I sacrificed a good marriage. Nevertheless, Commissioner Bowie Kuhn prohibited Mays and Yankees great Mickey Mantle, who had a similar job, from holding salaried positions with major-league clubs.

In New York Daily News writer Bill Madden interviewed Willie to mark his 50th birthday. Charisma is the way some other people would explain it. Mays has his own explanation as to why he is so beloved. I loved what I was doing. Giants general manager Al Rosen put Willie back in uniform as a spring-training instructor the next year. His presence is electric. At a ceremony in honoring Willie McCovey, Mays received a five-minute standing ovation from the Candlestick faithful. The s saw Willie lose three men who were great influences in his life.

In Leo Durocher died, and in Piper Davis died. Both were father figures to him. Willie had set Cat up in an apartment in Harlem in and moved him out to Oakland in InWillie Mays remained a part-time consultant for the Giants. A surrogate father to Barry Bonds, his godson, he gave his blessing when Bonds passed him for third place on the all-time home-run list in And the accolades kept coming.

President, Move on in. Your Friend, Willie Mays. When Peter Magowan, a Giants fan from the Polo Grounds days, purchased the team inone of his first acts was to give Willie Mays a lifetime contract to be a part of the Giants organization. You know what that means, right? Willie had requested the extra year to ensure that Mae would be cared for once he was gone. When The Sporting News polled fans to name the All-Century team for the 20th century, Willie placed second to Babe Ruth.

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He wrote the foreword for the book honoring the team: I have the satisfaction of knowing that when they call my name, everybody knows me. A version of this biography appeared in " The Team That Time Won't Forget: The New York Giants" SABR,edited by Bill Nowlin and C.

Astor, Gerald, The Baseball Hall of Fame 50th Anniversary Book New York: Southern Illinois University Press, Race, Class, Gender and the National Pastime Armonk, New York: Eskenazi, Gerald, The Lip: A Biography of Leo Durocher New York: William Morrow and Company Inc. The Life, the Legend New York: Simon and Shuster, Honig, Donald, The All Star Game St.

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The Sporting News Publishing Company, Kahn, Roger, The Era: Ticknor and Fields, The Birmingham Black Barons, the Last Negro League World Series, and the Making of a Baseball Legend New York: John Wiley and Sons, Inc. Mays, Willie, with Lou Sahadi, Say Hey: Simon and Schuster, Mays, Willie, as told to Charles Einstein, Willie Mays: My Life In and Out of Baseball New York: Museum of Living History, Academy of Achievement Interview with Willie Mays, February 19, achievement.

Roseboro, John, Glory Days With the Dodgers and Other Days With Others New York: Rust, Art, Get That Nigger Off the Field: An Oral History of Black Ballplayers From the Negro Leagues to the Present Los Angeles: Shadow Lawn Press, The Giants Win the Pennant!

An Illustrated History New York: The Life, The Legend, Bush, speech, July 30, SABR is housed at the Walter Cronkite School of Journalism and Mass Communication at Arizona State University. Skip to main content.

Willie Howard Mays Born: Willie remembered this catch in a interview: All in all, was a fine season. There were more to come. Willie said to his teammates: While reticent in the past on commenting about controversial issues, he said this to the executive board of the union: After a one-hour ceremony, many gifts, and an outpouring of affection from the fans at Shea, he made his farewell speech: At his induction ceremony, he was eloquent and humble: Sources Astor, Gerald, The Baseball Hall of Fame 50th Anniversary Book New York: Durocher, Leo, Nice Guys Finish Last New York: Zimmer, Don, with Bill Madden, The Zen of Zim New York: New York Daily News New York Times Newsweek New Yorker Saturday Evening Post San Jose Mercury News Sport magazine Sports Illustrated Jet magazine http: SABR Cronkite School at ASU N.

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