“Willie was one thing else,” Rev. William Greason stated of Mays, who died Tuesday on the age of 93. “He had a present that God gave him.”
Greason, now virtually 100 years outdated, was Mays’ teammate on the Birmingham Black Barons of the Negro Leagues.
“The camaraderie that we had on that crew, it was out of sight,” stated Greason, who added that, on the time, he had no concept he was enjoying alongside one among baseball’s all-time greats.
Parker Freedman/MLB Photos through Getty Images
“I simply needed to be a buddy,” Greason informed CBS News.
Mays was too younger to journey with the Black Barons, who barnstormed the Jim Crow South as a member of the Negro Southern League.
At Rickwood Field, which the Black Barons shared with the all-White Birmingham Barons, segregation was the enforced customized.
“When we performed right here, the Whites had been in proper subject,” Greason stated. “When they performed, we had been on the market.”
Since 1910, 182 MLB Hall of Famers, each Black and White, have graced Rickwood’s grounds. Legends like Reggie Jackson, Babe Ruth and “Hammerin’ Hank” Aaron.
When the St. Louis Cardinals play the San Francisco Giants at Rickwood Field Thursday in a sport that may pay tribute to each Mays and the legacy of the Negro Leagues, Cardinals shortstop Masyn Winn will probably be a rarity — an African American on a Major League roster.
“Being perhaps the one Black individual on the sphere goes to be fairly particular for me to characterize that on the market,” stated Winn, acknowledging, although, that the state of affairs speaks poorly of the state of African Americans in baseball proper now.
“I feel it simply means we want extra,” Winn stated.
In 1991, 18% of gamers on opening day rosters had been African American, in keeping with numbers from the Institute for Diversity and Ethics in Sport. This season, that’s down to six%.
But there are indicators that might be altering. In 2022, 4 of the highest 5 draft picks had been African American. In 2021, MLB introduced a $150 million funding geared toward rising Black illustration in baseball.
And final month, statistics from the Negro Leagues had been formally integrated into MLB report books.
“I feel it is cool to have that Black illustration up there,” Winn stated of that transfer. “I feel it is good for the following technology.”
MLB had deliberate for Mays to attend the Rickwood sport, a ballpark simply six miles from Mays’ boyhood house. Now, the sphere the place Mays’ baseball goals started will poetically symbolize the tip of that period and probably the daybreak of a brand new one.
“Many of these stats occurred … proper right here at Rickwood Field,” Birmingham Mayor Randall Woodfin informed CBS News. “…What occurred right here isn’t just Black historical past, it is America’s historical past. And the greats that got here by means of this place, they actually went on to alter what baseball meant.”
