Willie Mays, known as the “Say Hey Kid” and famous for his time with the Giants in the 1950s and 1960s, a legendary home run hitter and center fielder for the majority of his 23-year career in Major League Baseball, died on Tuesday at the age of 93 following a brief illness, the San Francisco Giants announced.
Mays started with the Giants in 1951 and had a 22-season career in Major League Baseball. Many consider him the greatest all-around player in the sport’s history. Except for his last two seasons, he played with the Giants in New York and San Francisco after the team moved there following the 1957 season.
Death of a Legend
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“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. There will never be another Willie Mays,” the Giants said in a statement on X on Tuesday.
The cause of death was not revealed. Mays, one of the greatest baseball players ever, hit 660 home runs, scored 2,068 runs, and made 3,293 hits. He won one World Series with the Giants in 1954, was a 24-time All-Star, and earned National League MVP titles in 1954 and 1965.
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The center fielder was the oldest living Hall of Famer in baseball.
Known for his signature basket catch and his energetic runs with his cap flying off, he embodied the joy of the game. His lightning-fast sprint and over-the-shoulder catch of an apparent extra-base hit in the 1954 World Series is still the most famous defensive play in baseball history.
He was traded to the Mets in May 1972 at age 41 and ended his career in Flushing, retiring after the Mets lost the 1973 World Series to the Athletics.
In August 2022, the Mets fulfilled a long-standing promise by retiring his No. 24, a number also worn by Rickey Henderson and Robinson Cano. The Giants had retired his number 50 years earlier, making Mays the 15th player in MLB history to have his number retired by multiple teams.
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Even though a memorable image from Game 2 of that World Series shows a diminished Mays falling in center field while trying to catch a fly ball at the Oakland Coliseum, he retired as a two-time NL MVP with 3,283 hits and 660 home runs, having hit over 50 home runs in two different seasons.
At the time of his retirement, his home run total was the third-highest in Major League Baseball history, behind Babe Ruth (714) and his contemporary Hank Aaron, who would later hit 755 home runs.
The Last of the Icons
Mays, a 12-time consecutive Gold Glove winner, popularized the basket catch and was famous for running so fast his cap would fly off. He was selected to a record-tying 24 NL All-Star teams, a distinction he shared with Hank Aaron and Stan Musial. There were two All-Star games each season from 1960 to 1962.
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“They invented the All-Star Game for Willie Mays,” said Ted Williams.
Mays was inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame in 1979, becoming just the ninth player to be enshrined in his first year of eligibility.
He received 94.7 percent of the vote, which was the fourth-highest percentage at the time, behind only Ty Cobb (98.2), Babe Ruth (95.1), and Honus Wagner (95.1).
However, 23 out of 432 members of the Baseball Writers Association of America did not vote for Mays.
In 1963, Mays ended one of the most famous pitching duels in Major League history by hitting a home run off Milwaukee’s Warren Spahn in the bottom of the 16th inning, securing a 1-0 victory for the Giants over the Braves. Starting pitchers Spahn and Juan Marichal both pitched 15 scoreless innings.
Mays earned his second MVP award in 1965 after hitting 52 home runs, including the 500th of his career, driving in 112 runs, and maintaining a .317 batting average.
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That same season, he acted as a peacemaker during one of baseball’s most notorious brawls involving Marichal and Dodgers catcher John Roseboro.
Mays, who finished in the top five in MVP voting nine times, played over 150 games in 13 consecutive seasons from 1954 to 1966. His 37 home runs in 1966 brought his total to 542 by the age of 35. However, he never hit more than 28 home runs in a season after that, accumulating only 118 in his final seven seasons.
His 660th and last home run came on August 17, 1973, with the Mets during a season in which he hit just six home runs in 66 games.
