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Willie Mays, the \u201cSay Hey Kid\u201d\u2014who was considered by many to have been the greatest centerfielder, if not the greatest all-around ballplayer of all time\u2014has died at age 93.<\/p>\n
Mays, who broke into the baseball in 1948 with the Birmingham Black Barons of the Negro League, spent a storied 21 major league seasons with the New York and San Francisco Giants, finishing his career as a New York Met. He remains the only player in the history of the majors to have racked up at least 3,000 hits, a .300 average, 300 home runs, and 300 stolen bases. He ultimately hit 660 homers, placing him in the sixth slot on the all-time list.<\/p>\n
Mays earned 12 Gold Glove Awards, was a two-time National League MVP (in 1954 and 1965), and a 24-time All-Star. Ted Williams once remarked, only half-jokingly, \u201cThey invented the All-Star Game for Willie Mays.\u201d<\/p>\n
Mays was elected to the Hall of Fame in 1979, his first year of eligibility, five years after his retirement. While his was not a unanimous induction, his percentage of ballots cast\u201494.6\u2014was the highest since the first year of voting, in 1936, when Ty Cobb, according to The New York Times,<\/em> was enshrined with 98.2 percent. (Babe Ruth and Honus Wagner garnered 95.1 percent apiece.) On Aug. 27, 2022, Mays became one of only 11 players whose number\u201324\u2013was retired by the two big-league teams he played for.<\/p>\n Mays was the quintessential five-tool player. Of his dominance in the game, legendary Negro Leaguer Buck O\u2019Neil, himself a Hall of Fame inductee, called Mays \u201cthe best Major League ballplayer I ever saw. Ted Williams beat you with the bat. Joe DiMaggio beat you with the bat, his glove, and his arm. But Willie Mays could beat you with the bat, his glove, his arm, and with the running. He could beat you any way that\u2019s possible.\u201d The legendary Reggie Jackson once observed, of Mays, \u201cYou used to think, if the score was 5-0, he\u2019d hit a five-run homer.\u201d<\/p>\n Mays was a hit off-the-field as well, his prowess the stuff of the popular 1954 recording by the Treniers, \u201cSay Hey (The Willie Mays Song)\u201d:<\/p>\n He runs the bases like a choo-choo train<\/em>\n
Swings around second like an aeroplane<\/em>
His cap flies off when he passes third<\/em>
And he heads home like an eagle bird.<\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/blockquote>\n