Willie Mays is honored during a Negro League tribute. After his death, the event takes on new meaning

CNN
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Two days after losing one of its most illustrious stars, Major League Baseball will honor the Say Hey Kid at America’s oldest professional ballpark, where teenage Willie Mays once roamed the outfield for the Birmingham Black Barons of the Negro Leagues.

Mays, the electrifying Hall of Famer who mastered all facets of the game and whose remarkable catch in the 1954 World Series still captivates, died Tuesday at the age of 93. A day earlier, he told the San Francisco Chronicle that he would not be able to attend the MLBs. celebration of the Negro Leagues with a game Thursday at Rickwood Field, where a young Mays began to show the grit and grace that would make him an icon.

“The overwhelming consensus is that Willie Mays is the best all-around player to ever play,” veteran sportscaster Bob Costas told CNN. “And as sad as it is, there is something poetic about the fact that he passes away while much of the baseball world is gathered in Birmingham, Alabama, at Rickwood Field, for a game that was and still will be dedicated to Willie are. ”

MLB planned to honor Mays during the game in his native Alabama. Instead, Mays said he planned to watch his beloved San Francisco Giants play the St. Louis Cardinals on TV.

“My heart will go out to all of you who honor the Negro League ballplayers who should always be remembered, including all my teammates on the Black Barons,” Mays told the newspaper.

Thursday’s game will now serve as a national commemoration “of an American who will forever remain on the shortlist of the most impactful individuals our great game has ever known,” MLB Commissioner Rob Manfred.

MLB at Rickwood Field: A Tribute to the Negro Leagues on Fox includes a pregame ceremony honoring Mays, who began his professional career with the Black Barons in 1948.

The Say Hey Kid, as he was called for the way he enthusiastically greeted others, died “peacefully and among loved ones,” his son, Michael Mays, said in a statement from the Giants, the MLB franchise with which Mays was most associated .

“I want to thank you all from the bottom of my broken heart for the unwavering love you have shown him over the years. You have been his lifeblood,” Michael Mays said.

Rickwood Field is hallowed ground. It was the site of the final Negro League World Series game in October 1948. Mays and his Black Barons fell to the Homestead Grays in five games. Rickwood Field, built in 1910, is America’s oldest baseball stadium.

“That was where a 17-year-old boy named Willie Mays came out and patrolled center field for the Birmingham Black Barons,” said Bob Kendricks, president of the Negro Leagues Baseball Museum in Kansas City, Missouri. “It always has meaning. It gave me goosebumps. And that still happens every time I walk onto that field.

“Although we are all in a somewhat somber mood, I believe it will be the ultimate celebration of Willie Mays’ life.”

Greg Morla, who is visiting Birmingham from San Francisco on Wednesday for Thursday’s game, recalled his father taking him to his first MLB game in 1970 at San Francisco’s old Candlestick Park. Morla didn’t know the hometown Giants, but he was impressed by the ovation for one player in particular.

“Daddy, who is that?” Morla, wearing a Giants jersey, said he asked his father. “My father taught me who Willie was. That’s how I became a fan of the Giants. That’s how I became a big fan of Willie… And when he passed away last night, tears flowed down. May he rest in peace. He is forever my idol.”

Mays hit for both power and average, while also excelling at running, throwing and fielding. In 23 Major League seasons, mostly with the New York Giants and San Francisco Giants, he finished his career with 660 home runs – then the second most behind legend Babe Ruth.

Mays would play in 24 All-Star games before retiring in 1973 after two seasons with the New York Mets. His number 24 has been retired by the San Francisco Giants.

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

The hits came in 1948, when he was a teenager with the Black Barons of the Negro American League.

“I was still in high school,” Mays remembers. “Our school didn’t have a baseball team. I played football and basketball, but I loved baseball. So my dad let me play… but ONLY if I stayed in school. He wanted me to graduate. I played with the team on the 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 achievement at age 93 “amazing.”

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. He was an ambassador of the game and a father figure to countless younger players who would become stars in their own right.

“All that time in New York, he was the guy everyone looked forward to seeing. The Giants moved west in 1958. Suddenly he became the guy who took care of everyone, and I’m talking Willie McCovey, Orlando Cepeda, Juan Marichal, the Alou brothers,” baseball writer and Mays biographer John Shea recalled to San Francisco Chronicle. .

“He was the man in the clubhouse. He was the man of the team. So all that wisdom he got from the Negro Leagues and the black barons and his father playing catch as a young boy was all put together.

“And all his life he wanted to pay it back, and that’s exactly what he’s done for the last several decades. And now look at it. It’s like he’s going out on his terms. It is a full circle moment. We’re all in Birmingham to celebrate the Negro Leagues, to celebrate Willie Mays. And two days before the Rickwood game he said, ‘Thank you.’ ”