Willie Mays

Considered baseball's greatest player in its history, Willie Mays began his impressive career as a player for the New York Giants. Mays ended his career in 1973 with the Mets.

Born in Westfield, Alabama on May 6, 1931, Willie Mays was an athletic son of a steelworker who actually played baseball himself for the Birmingham Industrial League. As a child Mays constantly played baseball. When he was just 13 years old he played for the Gray Sox which was a semi-professional baseball team. When he was a teenager, Mays played center field position for the team known as the Birmingham Barons which was a local admission in the Negro Leagues (the major league division only for African American baseball players).

After baseball great Jackie Robinson broke the color obstacle for major league baseball, the Negro leagues were scouted by the professional teams which were now racially integrated. Soon Mays was discovered by a scout for the New York Giants who signed him to a minor league position.

In the spring of 1951 Giants manager Leo Durocher promoted Mays to the major league division where he played center field and was the number three batter for the New York Giants team. Up to this point Mays' many achievements included obtaining a .274 batting average, hitting 20 home runs and he was honored in 1951 as being named National League's Rookie of the Year. In 1954 Mays was presented the Most Valuable Player Award, he also scored 41 home runs and helped to advance the Giants in winning the world championship. This same year during the World Series Mays made his famous over-the-shoulder catch of such significant skill that it became referred as The Catch.

The Giants left New York after the 1957 season and headed to San Francisco. In 1962 Mays scored an impressive 141 home runs and aided the Giants into the World Series game. In 1963 Mays achieved his 400th home run. Mays had perhaps one of the most successful careers in the history of the major leagues. He hit more than six hundred home runs and is considered to be baseball's greatest base runner. Mays was honored in 1979 with being inducted in to the Baseball Hall of Fame.