Willie Mays Honored
LOS ANGELES (CNS) – The Dodgers honored the late New York and San Francisco Giants Hall of Famer Willie Mays before Monday evening’s opener of the four- game series between the longtime rivals at Dodger Stadium, with his son Michael in attendance.
“As beautiful as the outpouring of love for my father has been, frankly, I’m not surprised,” Michael Mays, whose father died June 18 at the age of 93, said before the ceremony. “But for his team’s forever rival to make it their business to pay tribute to him may be the greatest testament of all to his impact.”
The late Dodger broadcaster Vin Scully said Mays was “the greatest player he ever called” and “his favorite player, even though you wore the wrong uniform.”
Mays was in the broadcast booth at the then-AT&T Park (now Oracle Park) in San Francisco when Scully called his final game on Oct. 2, 2016, when Mays revealed a plaque honoring Scully in that booth.
Mays hit 98 home runs against the Dodgers, his most against any team.
Mays played for the Giants from 1951, when they were based in New York, until 1972, when he was traded to the New York Mets. His 660 home runs were third-most in major league history when he retired in 1973. Mays is now sixth on the all-time list. He missed all but 34 games in the 1952 season and the entire 1953 season after being drafted into the U.S. Army.
Mays’ 1,909 RBIs are 11th all-time and 3,293 hits are 12th. His six RBIs and 10 hits in 13 games as a 17-year-old with the Birmingham Black Barons of the Negro American League in 1948 were added to his National League totals May 29, following the overall evaluation of statistics from the Negro Leagues from 1920 to 1948 by the independent Negro Leagues Statistical Review Committee.
Mays was the National League MVP in 1954 and 1965 and its rookie of the year in 1951, when he was called up 37 games into the season and went hitless in his first 12 at-bats before homering off future Hall of Famer Warren Spahn.
Mays was a 24-time All-Star Game selection — two All-Star Games were played annually from 1959 to 1962 — and led the National League in home runs four times, including in 1965, when he hit a career-high 52 at age 34. He also led the league in stolen bases four times.
Mays was a 12-time Gold Glove recipient for his prowess as a center fielder, best remembered for his over-the-shoulder running grab of a drive off the bat of Cleveland’s Vic Wertz about 425 feet from home plate at New York’s Polo Grounds during the eighth inning of Game 1 of the 1954 World Series.
Mays was elected to the Baseball Hall of Fame in 1979, his first year of eligibility.
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