Willie Mays, whose baseball profession began within the Negro American League and ended with him acclaimed as one of many biggest gamers, if not the one biggest baseball participant within the sport’s historical past, passed away from heart failure on June 18, 2024. Mays was 93.
Mays signed with the Birmingham Black Barons in 1948 when he was 17. He performed with Birmingham till 1950, when he signed with the then-New York Giants upon graduating highschool. Mays first performed with the Giants in 1951, successful Nationwide League Rookie of the Yr and serving to the Giants win the pennant. Mays was within the on-deck circle when Bobby Thompson hit “the shot heard all over the world” off Ralph Branca. He once more led the Giants to the pennant in 1954, this time successful the World Collection. Mays appeared in two extra World Collection, one with the now-San Francisco Giants in 1962 and the opposite with the New York Mets in 1973, his ultimate season in Main League Baseball.
Mays’ profession statistics stay astonishing. He was chosen to the All-Star Sport 24 occasions. He gained the Nationwide League Most Invaluable Participant award twice. His 660 profession dwelling runs had been second to Babe Ruth on the time of Mays’ retirement. Mays gained 12 Gold Glove Awards. He led the Nationwide League in stolen bases 4 occasions. Mays led the Nationwide League in dwelling runs 4 occasions. He was the primary participant in Nationwide League historical past to have 30 dwelling runs and 30 stolen bases in the identical season. Making his profession stats all of the extra outstanding is that Mays missed many of the 1952 and all the 1953 seasons because the Military drafted him following the 1951 season. Had he not missed some 266 games on account of his navy service, it’s not past chance that Mays, not Hank Aaron, would have damaged Ruth’s dwelling run file.
Mays was my first sports activities hero. Rising up within the San Francisco Bay Space, the Giants had been the one sport on the town till I used to be 9 when the A’s moved from Kansas Metropolis to Oakland. Night time after evening was spent with a transistor radio below the pillow so my dad and mom wouldn’t catch me lengthy after my prescribed bedtime listening to Russ Hodges and Lon Simmons name Giants video games from the depressing freezing blight by the Bay, in any other case often known as Candlestick Park. I poured by means of the native paper’s sports activities part day by day, devouring each phrase concerning the Giants. The crew had no scarcity of stars throughout that point, as alongside Mays had been Willie McCovey and Juan Marichal, amongst others. However to me, Mays was all the time first.
I keep in mind my first Giants sport. It was Bat Day at Candlestick Park. The Giants misplaced to Ferguson Jenkins and the Chicago Cubs 4-0. Satirically, a few years later, I grew to become a Cubs fan. Equally paradoxically, the Giants had been enjoying the Cubs tonight, this time at Wrigley Discipline, when the announcement got here relating to Mays’ passing. The Cubs gained 5-2.
Mays was an indelible a part of my and each different San Francisco Bay Space child’s life rising up. His ability, together with the enjoyment and keenness he had for the sport all through his enjoying years and afterward when he labored with the Giants, made him one of the beloved figures not solely in San Francisco Bay Space sports activities historical past but additionally in American sports activities interval.
Godspeed, Willie Mays.
