Athletes - Willie Mays

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	Athletes - Willie Mays

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 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. 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 major league first 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 4-2 by the New York Yankees, but the series marked the only time that Mays and the ageing 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", which 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.

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Athletes - Willie Mays

Mays as a player

Career

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