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, died Tuesday at the age of 93, the San Francisco Giants announced.
Mays passed away “peacefully and among loved ones,” his son, Michael Mays, said in a release from the Giants, the Major League Baseball 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 life’s blood,” Michael Mays 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 on X.
Mays “inspired generations of players and fans as the game grew and truly earned its place as our national pastime,” MLB Commissioner Robert D. Manfred said in a release Tuesday.
“And yet his incredible achievements and statistics do not begin to describe the awe that came with watching Willie Mays dominate the game in every way imaginable. We will never forget this true Giant on and off the field,” Manfred said.
In early June, after Major League Baseball integrated Negro League statistics into its record books and added 10 hits to Mays’ career totals, he told CNN 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.”
Mays had just said he couldn’t attend special game set for Thursday
Mays’ death came just one day after he told the San Francisco Chronicle that he wouldn’t be able to attend a major event planned for later this week: Major League Baseball is scheduled to commemorate Juneteenth and celebrate the Negro Leagues with a game Thursday at Rickwood Field, in Birmingham, Alabama, where the Black Barons played.
MLB had long planned to honor Mays at the game, though he told the Chronicle on Monday that he couldn’t make it to Birmingham and instead would watch his San Francisco Giants play the St. Louis Cardinals on TV.
“My heart will be with all of you who are honoring the Negro League ballplayers, who should always be remembered, including all my teammates on the Black Barons,” Mays told the newspaper.
In the wake of Mays’ death, Thursday’s game will also serve as a national remembrance “of an American who will forever remain on the short list of the most impactful individuals our great game has ever known,” Manfred said Tuesday.
