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Willie Mays is widely considered the best baseball player in history. His speed, his hitting and overall understanding of the game. He's shown here at the 2004 Baseball Hall of Fame induction ceremonies in Cooperstown, N.Y.spanned more than two decades, from the 1950s to 1970s. He spent nearly all of those years with the Giants – first in New York and then in San Francisco. He was named to the All-Star team 24 times and won National League Most Valuable Player awards in 1954 and 1965.
MLB is hosting a game Thursday between the Giants and the St. Louis Cardinals at historic Rickwood Field in Birmingham, Ala. where Mays once played. Baseball officials were already planning to honor Mays's extensive career at the game including an unveiling of a Willie Mays mural.Fans are already remembering the incomparable skill and infectious joy the player nicknamed"The Say Hey Kid" brought to ballparks across the country.Somehow, the name Willie Mays never was enough.
"He caught a ball as a rookie in Brooklyn," said Jim Hirsch, who wrote the authorized biography,"Willie Mays: The Life, the Legend" in 2010."It was a long fly ball hit into left centerfield, toward the fence. He dove flat out, caught the ball, hit the fence and the ground at the same time. knocked himself out. He got a concussion. But he held onto the ball. He said that was his greatest catch.
"Willie liked to say that when fans left the ballpark he wanted those fans to be talking about him on the field," Hirsch said in an interview."What did he do?" Mays and other Negro League players imported that style of play when the Major Leagues were integrated. You can see that style in today's game. The basket catch isn't a novelty anymore; outfielders charge the ball, like infielders, as Mays first did.The Mays effervescence and energy often disappeared away from the ballpark.Although endlessly loyal with close friends, Mays was an intensely private person who tried to keep people at arm's length.
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