Willie Mays, one of many best baseball gamers of all time, dies at age 93

Willie Mays, the enduring baseball legend whose exceptional profession spanned 22 seasons, has died, the San Francisco Giants introduced Tuesday. He was 93.

Mays “handed away peacefully this afternoon,” the Giants stated in a submit to social media. 

“All of Major League Baseball is in mourning at present as we’re gathered on the very ballpark the place a profession and a legacy like no different started,” Major League Baseball Commissioner Rob Manfred stated in an announcement Tuesday night. “Willie Mays took his all-around brilliance from the Birmingham Black Barons of the Negro American League to the historic Giants franchise. From coast to coast in New York and San Francisco, Willie impressed generations of gamers and followers as the sport grew and actually earned its place as our National Pastime.”  

Nicknamed the “Say Hey Kid,” Mays spent nearly all of his profession taking part in heart area for the Giants, first in New York after which after the workforce moved to San Francisco. During Game 1 of the 1954 World Series, the one championship he would win, Mays made “The Catch” — an over-the-shoulder snag of a fly ball that’s nonetheless thought-about the best catch within the historical past of the sport.

From then on, Mays was a cultural icon. 

As a baby, Mays realized to play baseball from his father, Cat Mays, in Westfield, Alabama. A single dad and a steelworker, Cat performed on the native metal mill’s baseball workforce and made time to show his son tips on how to play the sport he himself had aspired to play professionally. 

At 16, Mays joined the Birmingham Black Barons. After graduating from highschool in 1951, he was signed by the New York Giants. 

“I arrived in New York City on a Friday at 4 o’clock,” Mays recalled throughout his Hall of Fame induction ceremony in 1979. “Scared to loss of life with three bats in my little briefcase, my glove, I did not have a uniform, I did not have a hat.”

It did not take lengthy to search out his footing. Mays was named National League Rookie of the Year after his first season.

His profession was interrupted in 1952 when he was drafted by the Army in the course of the Korean War. He was assigned to Fort Eustice in Virginia, and spent most of his time taking part in on army baseball groups, based on the Society for American Baseball Research. 

He was discharged in March of 1954, and rejoined the Giants for what would change into a championship season, wherein he additionally gained his first of two MVP awards.

He moved with the workforce to San Francisco in 1958, led them to a World Series look in 1962 — dropping to the New York Yankees in seven video games — and have become the workforce’s captain in 1964. He gained his second MVP award in 1965.

Mays was traded to the New York Mets for the 1972-73 season, which might show to be his final.

He completed his taking part in profession with 660 residence runs, the sixth most of all time. 

He was a 24-time All-Star, tied for second most of all time, and gained 12 Golden Glove awards. 

Mays was a first-ballot Hall of Famer, receiving 97% of the vote when he turned eligible in 1979.

Despite the commerce from the Giants, for the remainder of his life there was at all times a particular place for him within the San Francisco clubhouse, the place a go to from Mays typically impressed youthful gamers.

A landmark statue was erected in 2000 in his honor outdoors of what’s now known as Oracle Park. The statue is surrounded by 24 palm bushes, in homage to his quantity 24, which was additionally retired by the group. The statue is a small reminder of a person who was lengthy thought to be baseball’s best dwelling legend, even when that wasn’t essentially a label he cared for. 

“I by no means like that,” he stated in 2011. “If you’re the best ballplayer, you say, ‘you are the best ball participant.’ Rather not the ‘dwelling ball participant’. What good is that? When I first heard it, I stated ‘Wait a minute. You males I obtained to be handed away earlier than you guys give me credit score for doing one thing?'”

But all through the years, Mays’ mixture of pace, energy and protection led many to think about him the best of all time, dwelling or useless.