People, Locations, Episodes

Willie Mays, Baseball Player born

Willie Mays

*Willie Mays was born on this date in 1931. He was a Black Baseball player.

Both of his parents were athletes from Westfield, Alabama. His father played baseball on the all-Black teams of the Jim Crow South, and his mother was a champion sprinter in her school. In his youth, his father also worked in a steel mill and played on a semi-professional team sponsored by the mill. Young Mays was taught to catch a ball before he could walk, and at age 14, he joined his father on the mill team. His high school had no baseball team, so he played basketball and football.

Mays began his professional career at age 16, playing with the Birmingham Black Barons in the segregated Negro Southern League. While his father avidly supported Willie's ambition to be a professional ballplayer, he also insisted his son finish high school. In his first year with the Barons, Mays was restricted to playing home games so he wouldn't miss school. The day he graduated from high school Major League Baseball's New York Giants signed him. Mays began playing in Trenton, New Jersey, quickly advancing to their AAA farm club, the Minneapolis Millers.

In 1951, at 20, he joined the Giants at the Polo Grounds in New York City. Nicknamed the "Say Hey Kid," Mays led the National League in Home Runs and stolen bases four times each. He was a 2-time MVP (1954,65) with the NY-San Francisco Giants and was elected to the Baseball Hall of Fame. Mays played in 24 All-Star Games, earning MVP honors twice (1963,68). He was a 12-time Gold Glove winner, hit 660 Home Runs, and had 3,283 hits in his career. In 1986, Mays returned to the San Francisco Giants organization, where he served as special assistant to the club president.

In 1993, the Giants made this a lifetime appointment. His position in the history of his sport is that of Willie Mays, one of baseball's immortals.

To become a Professional Athlete.