Baseball icon Willie Mays, one of the game’s most electrifying and complete players, has died at 93

By: CNN

Posted: Jun 18, 2024 10:02 PM CDT

Bettmann/Getty Images via CNN Newsource

(CNN) — Willie Mays, the dynamic baseball Hall of Famer who shined in all facets of the game and made a dramatic catch in the 1954 World Series, has passed away at the age of 93, the San Francisco Giants announced on social media Tuesday.

“It is with great sadness that we announce that San Francisco Giants Legend and Hall of Famer Willie Mays passed away peacefully this afternoon at the age of 93,” the team said.

Known as “The Say Hey Kid” for the way he enthusiastically greeted others, Mays was a five-tool player with the rare ability to hit for power and for average while also excelling at running, throwing and fielding.

In 23 major league seasons, mostly with the New York Giants and the San Francisco Giants, he finished with 660 career home runs – then the second most behind legend Babe Ruth.

Mays led the National League in home runs and steals in four seasons and in slugging five times. He hit over .300 ten times and had a career average of .301.

The speedy center fielder also was as dominant in the field as he was at the plate, winning 12 Gold Gloves.

“We are heartbroken to learn of the passing of Hall of Famer Willie Mays, one of the most exciting all-around players in the history of our sport” Major League Baseball said in a statement on X.

In early June, after Major League Baseball integrated Negro League statistics into its record books and Mays added 10 hits to his career totals, he told CNN in a statement that “it must be some kind of record for a 93-year-old.”

The hits came in 1948, when he was teenager with the Negro American League’s Birmingham Black Barons.

“I was still in high school,” Mays recalled. “Our school did not have a baseball team. I played football and basketball, but I loved baseball. So my dad let me to play … but ONLY if I stayed in school. He wanted me to graduate. I played with the team on weekends until school was out for the summer.”

“I thought that was IT; that was the top of the world. Man, I was so proud to play with those guys,” he said. Mays called his statistical accomplishment at age 93 “amazing.”

‘The Catch’

In Game 1 of the World Series between the New York Giants and the Cleveland Indians, Mays made one of baseball’s most memorable catches at Polo Grounds in New York.

With runners on first and second in the eighth inning of a 2-2 game, Indians batter Vic Wertz hit a 425-foot drive to deep center field.

Mays turned and sprinted back towards the wall, somehow catching the ball over his shoulder with his back to the plate. He then fired it back to the infield, preventing the runners from scoring.

In those days, players regularly scored from second base after tagging up at that ballpark. The catch became the defining play of Mays’ career and one of the most famous plays in baseball history.

New York won the game 5-2 in 10 innings and would go on to sweep the Indians to capture the World Series.

That capped an impressive season for Mays as he won his first of two National League Most Valuable Player awards. The other came in 1965.

In 1954, Mays led the league with a .345 batting average and 12 triples and smashed 41 homers while driving in 110 runs.

But what’s perhaps most extraordinary about that 1954 season was prior to it, he did not play baseball. Mays spent most of 1952 and all of 1953 in the Army.

A long, brilliant career

Mays made his Major League debut for the Giants in 1951 at the age of 20 after playing in the Negro Leagues.

He wasted no time in capturing accolades.

He won the Rookie of the Year award and helped New York rally from a 13-game deficit to tie the Brooklyn Dodgers at the end of regular season.

In 1958, baseball’s landscape changed dramatically as the Giants moved west to San Francisco.

It was a new home but the same outstanding level of play from Mays, who notched a career-high .347 batting average in his first season out west.

Four years later, Mays’ 49 homers and 141 runs batted in (RBI) helped the Giants return to the World Series, where they lost a 7-game thriller to the New York Yankees.

Mays would play in 24 All-Star games before retiring in 1973 after two seasons with the New York Mets.

His number 24 is retired by the San Francisco Giants.

‘One of baseball’s most exciting stars,’ says Mays’ Hall of Fame plaque

In 1979, Mays was inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame. “One of baseball’s most colorful and exciting stars excelled in all phases of the game,” his plaque reads.

That same year, he took a job as a greeter with a casino hotel. Baseball, which feared any connection with gambling, put him on permanent suspension. But Mays was welcomed back into the game in 1985 by commissioner Peter Ueberroth who said Mays “belongs in baseball.”

In 2015, President Barack Obama bestowed Mays with the nation’s highest civilian honor, the Presidential Medal of Freedom.

“We have never seen an all-around, five-tool player quite like Willie before,” Obama said.

“Willie also served our country, and his quiet example while excelling on one of America’s biggest stages helped carry forward the banner of civil rights,” the statement continued. “It’s because of giants like Willie that someone like me could even think about running for President.”

In 2017, Major League Baseball renamed the World Series Most Valuable Player Award after Mays.