Willie Mays biography
Willie Mays, in full Willie Howard Mays, byname the Say Hey Kid, (born May 6, 1931, Westfield, Alabama, U.S.), American skilled baseball participant who was distinctive at each batting and fielding. Mays performed in main league baseball very quickly after the color bar ended, and he most likely by no means obtained the respect due him primarily based upon his abilities. He is taken into account by many to have been the perfect all-around participant within the historical past of baseball.
Both Mays’s father and his grandfather had been baseball gamers. Willie Mays, who batted and fielded right-handed, performed semiprofessional baseball when he was 16 years outdated and joined the Birmingham Black Barons of the Negro National League in 1948, taking part in solely on Sunday in the course of the college 12 months. The National League New York Giants paid the Barons for his contract when he graduated from Fairfield Industrial High School in 1950. After two seasons within the minor leagues, Mays went to the Giants in 1951 and was named Rookie of the Year on the finish of that season—one legendary in baseball. The Giants had been far behind the Brooklyn Dodgers within the pennant race. With the nice play of Mays and others, the Giants tied the Dodgers within the standings on the final day of the season, and a three-game play-off for the National League championship was gained with a house run, often known as “the shot heard ’round the world,” hit by the Giants’ Bobby Thomson.
Mays turned recognized first for his spectacular leaping and diving catches earlier than he established himself as a hitter. He served within the military (1952–54), and upon his return to baseball within the 1954 season, when the Giants gained the National League pennant and the World Series, Mays led the league in hitting (.345) and had 41 residence runs. In 1966 his two-year contract with the Giants (who had moved to San Francisco in 1958) gave him the very best wage of any baseball participant of that point. He was traded to the New York Mets midseason in 1972 and retired after the 1973 season. Late in his profession he performed within the infield, primarily at first base. His profession residence run whole was 660 and his batting common .302. Mays had 3,283 hits throughout his profession, which made him one of many small group of gamers with greater than 3,000 profession hits. He led the league in residence runs in 1955, 1962, and 1964–65, gained 12 consecutive Gold Gloves (1957–68), and was named an All-Star in 20 of his 22 seasons.
After retiring as a participant, Mays was a part-time coach and did public relations work for the Mets. In 1979 Mays took a public relations job with an organization that was concerned in playing considerations, with the end result that he was banned from baseball-related actions simply three months after being elected to the Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown, New York. In 1985 the ban was lifted, and in 1986 Mays turned a full-time particular assistant to the Giants. His autobiography, Say Hey (1988), was written with Lou Sahadi. In 2015 Mays was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom.