Willie Mays, former San Francisco Giants star and all-time MLB great, dies at 93
Willie Mays, the former San Francisco Giants star regarded as one of the best Major League Baseball players of all time, died Tuesday, June 18, according to the San Francisco Chronicle and ESPN. He was 93.
The Chronicle reported Mays, known as the “Say Hey Kid,” died of heart failure.
Born in Westfield, Alabama, Mays began his professional baseball career at 16 years old when he joined the segregated Negro Southern League. He was signed by the New York Giants the day he graduated from high school, and at the age of 20, in 1951, he joined the big-league club.
With the Giants, who moved to San Francisco in 1958, Mays quickly became one of the star players in the sport and a transcendent athlete in the Black community.
He played 21 seasons with the Giants before wrapping up his career back in New York, this time with the Mets in 1972 and 1973. Along the way, he won two MVP awards and made 24 All-Star teams, a feat many believe is unbreakable.
“They invented the All-Star game for Willie Mays,” former Boston Red Sox slugger Ted Williams once said of Mays.
Nicknamed “The Say Hey Kid,” Mays hit 660 career home runs, which ranks as the sixth most in MLB history. He amassed 3,283 hits and had a lifetime batting average of .301.
Also known for his defense, Mays had one of the most famous plays in history when he caught a towering drive in the 1954 World Series with his back to the ball. His all-around play in center field won him 12 Gold Gloves, which are awarded to the best defensive players in each league.
“I think I was the best baseball player I ever saw,” Mays reportedly told Newsweek in 1979.
Mays retired in 1973 and was inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame in 1979.
His impact on the sport and in San Francisco was still felt several decades after his retirement. Current Giants manager Gabe Kapler met Mays for the first time in 2020, calling it an “overwhelming experience,” according to MLB.com.
“You are talking to one of the few greatest players of all time, a San Francisco legend,” Kapler said. “He has meant so much to this franchise and — by extension — he means a lot to everybody in this clubhouse right now, myself included.”
Mays remained a part of the Giants organization well after his retirement. He signed a lifetime contract with the organization in 1993 and served as an assistant to the club’s president.
In 1999 when The Sporting News released its list of the top 100 baseball players of all time, Mays was second behind only Babe Ruth.
He received the Presidential Medal of Freedom award from Barack Obama in 2015, becoming one of few baseball players to earn the honor.
“It’s because of giants like Willie that someone like me could even think about running for president,” Obama said at the time.