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Willie Mays, American Baseball Player Anniversary
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May 8, 2008 - 10:26:24 AM
American professional baseball player who was exceptional at
both batting and fielding. Mays played in major league baseball very soon after
the colour bar ended, and he probably never received the respect due him based
upon his skills. He is considered by many to have been the best all-around
player in the history of baseball.
Both Mays's father and his grandfather had been baseball
players. Willie Mays, who batted and fielded right-handed, played
semiprofessional baseball when he was 16 years old and joined the Birmingham
Black Barons of the Negro National League in 1948, playing only on Sunday
during the school year. 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 in the minor leagues, Mays went to the Giants in 1951 and was
named Rookie of the Year at the end of that season-one legendary in baseball.
The Giants were far behind the Brooklyn Dodgers in the pennant race. With the
great play of Mays and others, the Giants tied the Dodgers in the standings on
the last day of the season, and a three-game playoff for the National League
championship was won with a home run, known as "the shot heard 'round the
world," hit by the Giants' Bobby Thomson.
Mays became known first for his spectacular leaping and
diving catches before he established himself as a hitter. He served in the army
(1952-54), and upon his return to baseball in the 1954 season, when the Giants
won the National League pennant and the World Series, Mays led the league in
hitting (.345) and had 41 home runs. In 1966 his two-year contract with the
Giants (who had moved to San Francisco in 1958) gave him the highest salary of
any baseball player of that time. He was traded to the New York Mets midseason
in 1972 and retired after the 1973 season. Late in his career he played in the
infield, mainly at first base. His career home run total was 660 and his
batting average .302. Mays had 3,283 hits during his career, which made him one
of the small group of players with more than 3,000 career hits. He led the
league in home runs in 1955, 1962, and 1964-65, won 12 consecutive Gold Gloves
(1957-68), and appeared in 24 All-Star Games.
After retiring as a player, Mays was a part-time coach and
did public relations work for the Mets. In 1979 Mays took a public relations
job with a company that was involved in gambling concerns, with the result that
he was banned from baseball-related activities just 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 became a full-time special assistant to the
Giants. His autobiography, Say Hey (1988), was written with Lou Sahadi
Source: Ocnus.net 2008