Willie Mays’ family and the San Francisco Giants jointly announced Tuesday night he had died earlier in the afternoon
FILE – This is a 1955 file photo showing New York Giants baseball player Willie Mays. Mays turns 90 on Thursday, May 6, 2021. Willie Mays, the electrifying “Say Hey Kid” whose singular combination of talent, drive and exuberance made him one of baseball’s greatest and most beloved players, has died. He was 93.
Mays died two days before a game between the Giants and St. Louis Cardinals to honor the Negro Leagues at Rickwood Field in Birmingham, Alabama. “When I played ball, I tried to make sure everybody enjoyed what I was doing,” Mays told NPR in 2010. “I made the clubhouse guy fit me a cap that when I ran, the wind gets up in the bottom and it flies right off. People love that kind of stuff.”
FILE – New York Giants’ Willie Mays makes a catch of a ball hit by Cleveland Indians’ Vic Wertz in Game 1 of the 1954 baseball World Series in New York’s Polo Grounds on Sept. 29, 1954. Mays, the electrifying “Say Hey Kid” whose singular combination of talent, drive and exuberance made him one of baseball’s greatest and most beloved players, has died. He was 93.
“Soon as it got hit, I knew I’d catch the ball,” Mays told biographer James S. Hirsch, whose book came out in 2010. But “The Catch” and his achievements during the regular season were greatness enough. Yankees and Dodgers fans may have fiercely challenged Mays’ eminence, but Mantle and Snider did not. At a 1995 baseball writers dinner in Manhattan, with all three at the dais, Mantle raised the eternal question: Which of the three was better?FILE – New York Giants center fielder Willie Mays leaps high to snare a ball near the outfield fence at the Giants’ Phoenix spring training base, Feb. 29, 1956.
He didn’t care for some of his managers and didn’t always appreciate a fellow idol, notably Aaron, his greatest contemporary. Years earlier, when living in Manhattan, he endeared himself to young fans by playing in neighborhood stickball games. Durocher managed Mays from 1951-55 and became a father figure — the surly but astute leader who nurtured and sometimes pampered the young phenom. As Durocher liked to tell it, and Mays never disputed, Mays struggled in his first few games and was ready to go back to the minors.
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