New York just lost the last living legend of its golden age of baseball: Hall of Famer Willie Mays, the “Say Hey Kid,” died Tuesday at age 93.
Mays began his pro baseball career in the Negro Leagues with the Birmingham Black Barons before joining the New York Giants in 1951, four years after Jackie Robinson and the Dodgers broke the color barrier.
He won Rookie of the Year, hitting 20 home runs and helping the Giants win their first pennant in 14 years, then missed the 1952 and ’53 seasons after being drafted into the Army during the Korean War.
When he returned in ’54, he won NL MVP.
For a few years, Mays shared the Big Apple baseball spotlight with two other slugging star centerfielders, the Yankees’ Mickey Mantle and the Dodgers’ Duke Snider.
Then the Dodgers skipped off to LA and the Giants to ‘Frisco; even later Yankees dynasties (and the occasional awesome Mets success) can’t fully compare to what the city had then.
But Mays remained a national treasure, an all-time great whose tremendous love of the game shined every day.
In his 22 seasons, he was a 24-time All-Star (they had two a year for a bit), 12-time Gold Glove winner, four-time NL home-run leader and two-time NL MVP.
He played in three World Series, winning only once — but made the play of the ages in 1954’s Game One with “The Catch.”
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He returned to play in New York with the Mets for his final years, delivering a clutch hit in Game Two of his last World Series at age 42: an RBI single off Hall of Fame A’s reliever Rollie Fingers in the 12th as the Mets won 10-7.
Named to the Major League Baseball All-Century Team in 1999, awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 2015, Mays passed just days before he was to be honored at MLB’s tribute to the Negro Leagues with the Rickwood Field Game in Birmingham.
On a diamond up in heaven, they’re cheering Willie, Mickey and the Duke.
Say hey, say hey, say hey: Rest in peace, Willie Mays.