Willie Mays Biography

Willie Mays was one of baseball’s biggest superstars during his 22-season major league career. A speedy center fielder, he stole 338 bases, won 11 Gold Gloves for defensive skill, amassed 3283 hits, and slugged 660 home runs during his big-league career. He was elected to the Baseball Hall of Fame in 1979.

Willie Mays was a star right out of the gate: he was the National League’s Rookie of the Year in 1951, playing with an eager energy and charisma, along with incredible talents, that won over fans. (Jackie Robinson had broken the color barrier in major league baseball in 1947, paving the way for Mays and other African-Americans to play in the big leagues.)

Mays stood out. He popularized the basket catch, in which the glove is held waist-high and face up, like a basket. His habit of greeting people with the words “Say, hey!” earned him the nickname of the “Say Hey Kid.” Willie Mays missed most of the 1952 season, and all of 1953, after being drafted into the U.S. Army; when he returned in 1954, he led the Giants to the World Series, where his dashing over-the-shoulder catch of a deep center field fly by Vic Wertz was captured on newsreel film and became the signature moment of his career.

Willie Mays played for 22 seasons between 1951 and 1973, nearly all of them for the Giants. (The franchise moved from New York to San Francisco in 1958, Mays moving with the team.) Mays played in 24 All Star games (a record number that he shares with Stan Musial and Hank Aaron) and was named the National League’s most valuable player in both 1954 and 1965.