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Willie Howard Mays,\u00a0 one of the greatest baseball players in history and a pioneering early black black\u00a0 player died yesterday, June 18, at the age of 93.<\/p>\n
Mays played several sports at Fairfield Industrial High School. On the basketball team, he led players at all-black high schools in Jefferson County in scoring.<\/sup> Mays played quarterback, fullback and punter for the football team.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
Willie started playing professional baseball while still in high school\u00a0 on the Chattanooga Choo Choos and Birmingham Black Barons. (MLB was interested, but could not sign him until he graduated from high school.) He signed with the Giants organization in 1951.<\/p>\n
Soon after the 1951 season ended, Mays learned the United States Army had drafted him to serve in the Korean War. Before he left to join the Army, Mays played the first few weeks of the 1952 season with the Giants. He batted .236 with four home runs in 34 games. He surprised sportswriters like Red Smith when he drew cheers from fans of the Brooklyn Dodgers, the Giants’ archrivals, in his last game before reporting.<\/sup><\/p>\n
After his induction into the Army on May 29, Mays reported to Fort Eustis in Virginia, where he spent much of his time playing on military baseball teams with other major leaguers. It was at Fort Eustis that Mays learned the basket catch from fellow Fort Eustis outfielder Al Fortunato. Mays missed about 266 games because of his military service.<\/sup> Discharged on March 1, 1954, he reported to Giants’ spring training camp the following day.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
If you don’t remember the famous “basket catch” from the ’54 World Series, you should go to The Catch<\/a> and see it. Willy pegged it so well that he didn’t even look at the ball for the last 20 feet of its flight – he was too busy running to get under it.<\/p>\n
A 24-time All-Star, this tied him for the second most in history. He led the NL in home runs four times and in slugging percentage five times while batting over .300 and posting 100 runs batted in (RBIs) ten times each. Mays was also at the forefront of a resurgence of speed as an offensive weapon in the 1950s, leading the league in stolen bases four times, triples three times, and runs twice; his 179 steals during the decade topped the major leagues. 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 home runs. Mays also set standards for defensive brilliance, winning 12 consecutive Gold Glove Awards after their creation in 1957, still a record for outfielders; he led NL center fielders in double plays five times and assists three times.\u00a0\u00a0 Wiki<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n
More than anything else, Willie was a class act and a hero to kids all over the country. He will be missed, not just as a ball player, but as a hell of a man.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"