Willie Mays
Encyclopedia : W : WI : WIL : Willie Mays
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| Personal Info | |
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| Birth | May 6, 1931, Westfield, Alabama |
| Professional Career | |
| Debut | May 25, 1951, New York Giants vs. Philadelphia Phillies, Shibe Park |
| Team(s) | New York Giants (1951-1957) San Francisco Giants (1958-1972) New York Mets (1972-1973) |
| Career Highlights | |
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Willie Howard Mays Jr. (born May 6, 1931 in Westfield, Alabama) is a former star of Major League Baseball. Mays, nicknamed The Say Hey Kid, played center field throughout nearly all his career. He is regarded as one of the finest players ever to have played the game and is often mentioned as the greatest living baseball player. The epitome of the five-tool player, he was elected to the Baseball Hall of Fame in his first year of eligibility, 1979.
Mays as a player
Mays was averse to drinking or smoking, which probably contributed to his great longevity as a player. In 21 seasons (excluding one lost partially to military service), he played 150 or more games, and more than 100 an additional five times.)Career
Mays' athleticism was evident from an early age. At high school he played quarterback on the football team, and was offered college scholarships in both football and basketball. Rejecting both, he began to play baseball professionally as soon as he left school, playing briefly with the Chattanooga Choo-choos before returning to his home town to join the Birmingham Black Barons of the Negro American League in 1947. Wisely, he eschewed signing a contract with the Barons. He was scouted by a number of major league teams, but in 1950 the New York Giants signed him, and sent him to their Class-B affiliate Trenton, New Jersey."They invented the All-Star game for Willie Mays" -Hall of famer Ted Williams
"He could do the five things you have to do to be a superstar: hit, hit with power, run, throw,and field. And he had that other ingredient that turns a superstar into a super superstar. He lit up the room when he came in. He was a joy to be around." -Manager Leo Durocher
Mays quickly discovered that his outstanding talent did not make him immune from racism when he was forced to stay in a black-owned hotel away from his teammates during his minor league debut at Hagerstown, Maryland. He was also subjected to racial taunts from the crowd, but gained a measure of revenge by hitting two home runs and a double that night.
After hitting .353 in Trenton, he began 1951 playing for the AAA Minneapolis Millers of the minor league American Association. With the Millers, Mays was immediately a fan favorite with his stellar offense and defensive play. Hitting .477 after 35 games, he was called up to the major leagues in May, 1951, after Giants owner Horace Stoneham took out a full page advertisement in several Minneapolis newspapers, apologizing for taking him away from the Millers.
With the Giants, Mays immediately entered a slump, starting his career by getting no hits in his first 13 at bats. Worried, he asked manager Leo Durocher to send him back to the Millers. Durocher, who would be one of Mays's greatest admirers and defenders throughout his career, refused, telling Mays he was the Giants center fielder as long as Durocher was manager. The next day, Mays got his first major league hit, a home run off Warren Spahn of the Boston Braves.
From then on, his hitting steadily improved, although his .274 average, 68 RBI and 20 homers (in 121 games) would be among the worst of his career. Nevertheless, he won the 1951 Rookie of the Year Award, and ended the regular season as a somewhat nervous on-deck batter when Bobby Thomson's famous three-run homer won the pennant for the Giants. Mays performed poorly in the 1951 World Series, as the Giants were beaten 4 games to 2 by the New York Yankees, but the series marked the only time that Mays and the aging Joe DiMaggio would play on the same field. Playing a bit part for the Yankees was DiMaggio's heir apparent, and the player most comparable to Mays over their long careers, the 19-year-old Mickey Mantle.
Mays served in the U.S. Army during the Korean War, but did not see action overseas. He missed part of the 1952 season and all of the 1953 season, as the Giants finished 2nd and 5th in the National League. He returned in 1954, hit .354 with 41 home runs, and helped carry the Giants to a 97-57 record, the National League pennant and a four-game sweep of the Cleveland Indians in the World Series. In Game 1 of the series Mays made one of the greatest defensive plays of all time, a brilliant over-the-shoulder catch of a long drive by Vic Wertz, deep in centre field of the spacious Polo Grounds. The play, now known simply as "The Catch", kept the scores tied. After the Giants' victory, Mays was announced as winner of the National League Most Valuable Player Award and the Hickok Belt as top professional athlete of the year.
Over the next three seasons Mays continued to play brilliantly, but was frequently the only good player on a poor Giants team. After 1955's third place finish, Durocher was replaced by Bill Rigney, under whom they finished in sixth place in '56 and '57. When Mays moved along with the Giants to San Francisco for the 1958 season, he bought a palatial home in nearby Atherton. Seemingly symbolic of the Giants' past in New York, he was initially frostily received by the San Francisco fans. He was better loved in the rest of the country; fans turned out just to see him play as the uncompetitive Giants led the league in road attendance every year Mays was with them.
The Giants were a little better in '58, '59 and '60, winning 242 games and losing 220, and Rigney was fired half way through the 1960 season. His replacement for 1961 was Alvin Dark, formerly Mays' teammate, who immediately made Mays captain. The relationship was not entirely a happy one, however. Dark was a Southern Baptist from Alabama, and was quoted in 1964 as describing the unsuitability of black players for leadership roles; the manager insisted that he had been severely misquoted. Mays managed to defuse a potential strike among the black and Puerto Rican players, but did not speak to Dark again outside the dugout. Jackie Robinson came to Dark's defense, however, describing him as being a gentleman and unbiased.
Nevertheless, under Dark, the Giants won the National League pennant in 1962, defeating the Los Angeles Dodgers in a three-game playoff series. In the first game Mays hit two home runs. In the deciding third game, as in 1951, the Giants again scored four times in the ninth inning, to take the win and the series. Over the season, Mays was clearly the star. Playing in 162 games, he hit .304, and led the Giants in runs scored (130), RBI (141), doubles, triples, homers (with 49), stolen bases, on base percentage and slugging percentage as his play down the stretch enabled the Giants to catch the Dodgers. In the ensuing World Series, the Giants lost to the Yankees in seven games. Mays hit .286, with only one extra base hit. It was his last Series appearance as a Giant.
As he aged, Mays continued to play brilliantly. In the '63 and '64 seasons he again scored and drove in over 100 runs, and hit a total of 85 homers, but the Giants finished 2nd and 3rd in the league, even with the young Willie McCovey playing almost as well as Mays in 1963.
Mays won his second of two MVP awards in 1965, hitting a career high 52 long balls. One of those home runs, hit on September 13, off Don Nottebart, was the 500th of his career. Warren Spahn, who had given up the very first, was then with San Francisco and greeted Mays as he returned to the dugout. "Was it anything like the same feeling?" asked Spahn. "It was exactly the same feeling," Mays replied. "Same pitch, too."
Also in 1965, Mays put himself at the center of the year's greatest baseball controversy. On August 22 he, along with Sandy Koufax, acted as a peacemaker during a 14-minute brawl between the Giants and Dodgers at Candlestick Park, sparked by San Francisco pitcher Juan Marichal's notorious attack on Dodgers catcher John Roseboro. Mays helped the bleeding Roseboro off the field, a gesture that earned him considerable respect from Los Angeles fans.
He continued to play with that franchise until partway through the 1972 season, when he joined the New York Mets. The primary motivation for Mays' trade to the Mets was financial. The Giants were losing money and owner Horace Stoneham could not guarantee him an income after retirement, where the Mets offered him the option to be hired as a coach after his playing days were over. This was quite important to Mays as he had made some unwise investments and was not as wealthy as commonly believed. He played with the Mets until his retirement after the 1973 season. The Mets made the World Series in Mays' final year, only to lose in seven games to the Oakland Athletics.
Mays is the only MLB player to have a 4-home run game and a 3-triple game in a career.
Retirement
Mays was a coach for the New York Mets and also acted in a PR role for the club until 1979. He also served as a guest host of The Dick Cavett Show. On January 23, 1979, he was elected to the Hall of Fame in his first year of eligibility, appearing on 409 of the 432 ballots cast (roughly 95 percent). Shortly after, he took a job as a greeter in a casino in Atlantic City, New Jersey. Commissioner Bowie Kuhn immediately suspended Mays from involvement in organised baseball. Despite public outcry, the suspension would not be lifted till 1985 by Kuhn's successor, Peter Ueberroth. Having returned to Atherton, Mays is presently employed as Special Assistant to the Giants and appears often at baseball memorabilia shows.
Mays's number 24 is retired by the San Francisco Giants. Their home ballpark, AT&T Park, is located at 24 Willie Mays Plaza with a larger-than-life statue of Mays in front of the main entrance, surrounded by 24 palm trees, and the right-field wall is 24-feet high, all in honor of Mays. There is an ongoing grassroots campaign to honor Mays by calling the Giants' stadium [Mays Field].
Mays is the godfather of baseball star Barry Bonds. They share a close bond, and when Bonds tied Mays at third on the all time home run list, Mays greeted him warmly and presented him with a diamond-studded Olympic torch given to Mays for his part in carrying the Olympic Torch on its tour through the US.
In 1999, he ranked number 2 on The Sporting News' list of the 100 Greatest Baseball Players, making him then the highest-ranking living player, the highest-ranking player to have spent the majority of his career in the National League, and the highest-ranking center fielder. Later that year, he was elected to the Major League Baseball All-Century Team.
In 2005, Mays became an unwilling bystander in a civic fight in Hagerstown when a plan to re-name the city's Memorial Boulevard to Willie Mays Way, in his honor, met with angry complaints from veterans' groups. The move had been proposed by city mayor William Breichner as a way of erasing the ugly memories of Mays' debut 55 years earlier. However, after petitions were circulated around town by veterans, the plan was dropped.
Origin of \"Say Hey Kid\" Nickname
When Mays came to the majors, he didn't know everyone's name right away. "You see a guy, you say, 'Hey, man. Say hey, man,' " Mays said. "Ted was the 'Splinter'. Joe was 'Joltin' Joe'. Stan was 'The Man'. I guess I hit a few home runs, and they said there goes the 'Say Hey Kid.' " Mays credits sportswriter Jimmy Cannon with creating the nickname. Other sources trace it to sportswriter Barney Kremenko. [link]| G | AB | R | H | 2B | 3B | HR | RBI | SB | CS | BB | SO | BA | OBP | SLG | TB | SH | HBP |
| 2992 | 10881 | 2062 | 3283 | 523 | 140 | 660 | 1903 | 338 | 103 | 1464 | 1526 | .302 | .384 | .557 | 6066 | 13 | 44 |
See also
- Batters with 4 home runs in one game
- 50 home run club
- 500 home run club
- 3000 hit club
- 3000-500 Club
- MLB players who have hit 30 or more home runs before the All-Star break
External links
- Willie Mays at:
- [Baseball Hall of Fame]
- [Baseball Library]
- [Baseball Page]
- [Baseball Reference]
- [Willie Mays stereo sculpture picture in the Virtual Tour around SBC Park.] This method of stereo is called wiggling. It does not require any special equipment.
- [IMDb]
References
- David Pietrusza, Matthew Silverman & Michael Gershman, ed. (2000). Baseball: The Biographical Encyclopedia. Total/Sports Illustrated.
- "Willie's Time: A Memoir Of Another America", by Charles Einstein
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