Willie Mays

American baseball center fielder who played for 22 years with the New York and San Francisco Giants, as well as the New York Mets.

At age 15, Mays along with Jackie Robinson, Larry Doby, Pee Wee Reese and Gil Hodges put together a team in Birmingham and went around the country playing baseball wherever they could get paid. He played in the black leagues before signing with the Giants as a rookie in the 1951 season. Mays had a lifetime .302 average, he drove in more than 100 runs in 10 seasons, scored more than 100 runs for 12 consecutive seasons and had 338 stolen bases. In the 1960s, Willie Mays and Mickey Mantle were baseball's highest-paid players. Mays highest salary reached $180,000 per year.

He was fabled for his basket catches and boundless enthusiasm throughout the '50s. Having a rifle arm and quicksilver moves, Mays had a .302 average, hit 660 home runs and scored 2,062 runs over his entire career.

In 1979, he was inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame, and was named to the Major League Baseball All-Century Team in 1999. Mays was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 2015.

Willie Mays died of heart failure at a care home in Palo Alto, California on 18 June 2024. He was 93.