Giants outfielder Willie Mays collected his first major league hit on May 28, 1951. Mays had no hits in his first twelve at-bats in the major leagues, but he hit a home run off Warren Spahn over the left-field roof of the Polo Grounds in his thirteenth plate appearance. However, the Giants would lose to the Braves, 4-1.
What you are thinking, what shape your mind is in, is what makes the biggest difference of all.
~Willie Mays
Willie Howard Mays Jr. was born on May 6, 1931 in Westfield, Alabama. His father, Cat Mays, was a talented baseball player with the black team at the local iron plant, and his mother, Annie Satterwhite, was a talented basketball and track star in high school. Willie’s father exposed him to baseball from an early age, playing catch with him at five and allowing him to sit on the bench with his Birmingham Industrial League team at the age of ten. Besides baseball, Mays played both football and basketball in high school, excelling in both sports.
Mays’s professional baseball career began in the Negro Leagues in 1948 with the Chattanooga Choo-Choos, a Negro minor league team. Later that year, he joined the Birmingham Black Barons of the Negro American League. He signed with the New York Giants in 1950, going on to win NL Rookie of the Year honors in 1951. Over the course of his major league career, Mays made 24 All-Star teams, was named the National League MVP twice, in 1954 and 1965, and was elected to the Baseball Hall of Fame in 1979. He was the first NL player to hit 30 home runs and steal 30 bases in the same season, the first player in history to reach both 300 home runs and 300 stolen bases, and the second player and the first right-handed hitter to hit 600 career home runs. Mays also shined defensively, winning 12 consecutive Gold Glove Awards after their establishment in 1957.
Willie Mays died of heart failure in Palo Alto, California on June 18, 2024 at the age of 93. Rest in peace.
I hope Mays hits 600 [home runs]. For 25 years, they thought only left-handers could hit the long ones. They even teach right-handed youngsters to hit left.
~Jimmie Foxx
On April 6, 1971 at San Diego Stadium (later known as Jack Murphy Stadium), Willie Mays of the San Francisco Giants hit a home run in the first inning off Tom Phoebus of the Padres on Opening Day. This blast marked the beginning of an historic streak in which Mays hit home runs in each of the Giants’ first four games, setting a major league record. The record would later be tied by Mark McGwire (1998), Nelson Cruz (2011), and Chris Davis (2013).
They throw the ball, I hit it. They hit the ball, I catch it.
~Willie Mays
Baseball isn’t just the stats. As much as anything else, baseball is the style of Willie Mays, or the determination of Hank Aaron, or the endurance of a Mickey Mantle, the discipline of Carl Yastrzemski, the drive of Eddie Mathews, the reliability of a (Al) Kaline or a (Joe) Morgan, the grace of a (Joe) DiMaggio, the kindness of a Harmon Killebrew, and the class of Stan Musial, the courage of a Jackie Robinson, or the heroism of Lou Gehrig. My hope for the game is that these qualities will never be lost.
~George W. Bush
This weekend I watched a short documentary produced by Major League Baseball, Pride and Perseverance: The Story of the Negro Leagues. While the time period covered in the documentary spans from Moses Fleetwood Walker playing major league ball in the 1880s on up to the induction of Negro League players into the Baseball Hall of Fame starting in 1971, the documentary focuses primarily on the story of the Negro Leagues.
Dave Winfield narrates the documentary, and it includes footage from Negro League games, as well as some Major League games. It also features interviews with Negro Leagues players, including Buck O’Neil, Bob Mitchell, Willie Mays, John “Mule” Miles, Cool Papa Bell, and Ted Radcliffe. The interviews highlight just how good many Negro Leagues players really were, especially compared to white Major Leaguers, and it’s a lot of fun to see how much these guys light up when they talk about the level of talent.
The documentary touches on the racial struggles faced by black players. For example, many players accepted the fact that they would have to go around to the backs of restaurants to get food, and it was not uncommon to sleep on the bus because the hotels in a given town would not give them rooms. Nevertheless, the players talk about how much fun they had traveling and playing ball. The eventual recruitment of Jackie Robinson by Branch Rickey to break the color barrier, of course, receives due attention.
Overall, Pride and Perseverance is a fantastic overview of the history of the Negro Leagues. For a documentary that runs less than an hour long, it manages to cram a lot of interesting information into the film. It’s definitely worth checking out.
This piece by Yusef Komunyakaa was published originally in Magic City in 1992. It serves as a nod to black baseball as well as a depiction of baseball as play in juxtaposition to the working lives of black Americans. Life is hard for these young men, but the game provides them with an outlet to help them get through it all.
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Most were married teenagers
Working knockout shifts daybreak
To sunset six days a week–
Already old men playing ball
In a field between a row of shotgun houses
& the Magazine Lumber Company.
They were all Jackie Robinson
& Willie Mays, a touch of
Josh Gibson & Satchell Paige
In each stance and swing, a promise
Like a hesitation pitch always
At the edge of their lives,
Arms sharp as rifles.
The Sunday afternoon heat
Flared like thin flowered skirts
As children and wives cheered.
The men were like cats
Running backwards to snag
Pop-ups & high-flies off
Fences, stealing each others’s glory.
The old deacons & raconteurs
Who umpired made an Out or Safe
Into a song & dance routine.
Runners hit the dirt
& slid into homeplate,
Cleats catching light,
As they conjured escapes, outfoxing
Double plays. In the few seconds
It took a man to eye a woman
Upon the makeshift bleachers,
A stolen base or homerun
Would help another man
Survive the new week.
When I’m not hitting, I don’t hit nobody. But, when I’m hitting, I hit anybody.
~Willie Mays
