Willie Mays purchased a 15-room mansion in a New York City suburb to flee housing discrimination in San Francisco and remained below the radar, as rumors swirled a couple of crumbling marriage.
When the New York Giants moved to the Bay Area in 1957, consumers did not wish to promote to Mays, regardless of his famous person fame, as a result of house owners “stand to lose lots if coloured folks transfer in,” Mays mentioned in an interview, in response to James Hirsch’s biography about Mays’ life.
“Down in Alabama the place we come from, you recognize your home,” Mays mentioned in an interview, in response to Hirsch. “But up right here, it is plenty of camouflage. They grin in your face and deceive you.”
The racist housing debacle made nationwide headlines, which he needed to keep away from. He purchased a castle-like house 3,000 miles away in New Rochelle, New York, for $75,000 in 1960 from Samuel and Pauline Zaretsky, in response to the deed obtained by Fox News Digital.
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New Rochelle, nicknamed the “Queen City of the Sound,” is about half-hour north of Midtown Manhattan and is the seventh most populated metropolis in New York state.
Mays and his first spouse, Margherite, had been among the many first Black households who moved into the upscale, secluded part of the north finish of town.
The headline in The New York Times on May 28, 1960, learn, “WILLIE MAYS BUYS WESTCHESTER HOME; Neighbors in New Rochelle Welcome Negro Family to $75,000 Stone House.”
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City historian Barbara Davis advised Fox News Digital that they largely stayed to themselves and lived within the metropolis for a short while.
Mays traveled coast to coast between his rental house in San Francisco and his New Rochelle palace, which is estimated to be price about $2 million right this moment.
Willie Mays purchased this house in New Rochelle in 1960 after encountering racist housing practices in San Francisco following the Giants’ transfer from the Big Apple to the Bay Area. (New Rochelle Public Library)
The headline in The New York Times in May 1960 about Willie Mays shopping for a house in a New York City suburb. (New York Times Archives)
Mays is honored within the metropolis’s stroll of fame exterior the general public library, together with different baseball greats like Mariano Rivera and Lou Gehrig, and cultural icons like Ruby Dee.
“New Rochelle will be proud to assert an affiliation with a part of this baseball historical past, as Willie Mays, the ‘Say Hey Kid,’ lived in a 15-room Normandy type mansion at 90 Croft Terrace within the early Nineteen Sixties,” his plaque learn.
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The plaque consists of blurbs about his childhood in Alabama, stats of arguably one of many biggest gamers ever and, in fact, a reference to “The Catch,” the enduring picture of Mays working to lifeless middle discipline to catch a fly ball instantly over his head within the 1954 World Series.
The baseball legend’s demise final week seemingly introduced the nation collectively.
Willie Mays of the New York Giants goes again to catch the ball hit by Vic Wertz of the Cleveland Indians in the course of the World Series on Sept. 29, 1954, on the Polo Grounds in New York. (Bruce Bennett Studios through Getty Images Studios/Getty Images)
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Like Mays’ reported remark about “camouflaged” racism in San Francisco, the beautiful house hid turbulent occasions in Mays’ first marriage, in response to Hirsch’s biography.
About a 12 months or two earlier than the Mays household moved to New Rochelle, Margherite downplayed rumors of a crumbling marriage.
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They went by way of a public separation that included allegations of Mays’ ex-wife’s lavish spending habits. Their seven-year marriage, from 1956 to 1963, resulted in divorce.
Their animosity towards one another was detailed within the reporter’s biography – titled “Willie Mays. The Life. The Legend,” together with cases the place Mays slept on the reverse finish of the house.
The Walk of Honor plaque for Willie Mays in New Rochelle, New York, stroll of fame. (City of New Rochelle)
Willie Mays visits PS 46 in Harlem, subsequent to the location of the previous Polo Grounds, the place the New York Giants performed earlier than transferring to San Francisco in 1958, on Jan. 21, 2011 in New York City. (Michael Nagle/Getty Images)
Mays remarried to Mae Louise Allen. They had been collectively till she died in April 2013 on the age of 74, and Margherite died on the age of 84 in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, in July 2010.
As for his taking part in days, Mays’ profession stats embody 3,283 hits, 660 house runs, a profession .301 batting common, 1,909 RBIs and 339 stolen bases.
He nonetheless holds the MLB file for many putouts by an outfielder with 7,095. In truth, he is the one outfielder to file over 7,000 profession putouts.
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He performed for the Birmingham Black Barons within the Negro Leagues from 1948-1950, the New York Giants from 1951-1957 (with a two-year hole in ‘52 and ’53, when he served within the U.S. Army), the San Francisco Giants from 1958-1972, and the New York Mets from 1972-1973.
He was inducted into the National Baseball Hall of Fame in 1979, and into the New Rochelle Walk of Fame in 2014. President Barack Obama offered Mays with the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 2015.
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