Willie Mays

Willie Mays is widely considered the greatest all-around baseball player of all time. Born in Alabama in 1931, Mays began his career in the Negro Leagues with the Birmingham Black Barons before joining the New York Giants in 1951. He was a two-time MVP, 24-time All-Star, 12-time Gold Glove winner, and 660 home run slugger. Mays’s combined power, speed, defense, and charisma in ways the game had never seen before. His over-the-shoulder catch in the 1954 World Series remains one of the most iconic plays in baseball history.

Mays’s excellence helped redefine perceptions of Black athletes in America. He arrived just four years after Jackie Robinson and immediately captured the hearts of fans across racial lines. Robinson often criticized Mays for his refusal to be outspoken on issues of civil rights during his career. During the 1960s, as more athletes and entertainers joined the struggle, many African Americans found Mays’s conspicuous silence frustrating, even as Mays himself faced housing discrimination in San Francisco. Despite his reserved nature, Mays remained a transformative figure, shifting attitudes through his dominance over 22 seasons with the Giants and Mets. 

Though he and Robinson had different temperaments, they both understood the stakes of their presence on the field. Robinson once said of Mays, “He’s the only player I’d pay to see play.” In later years, Mays became a mentor to younger Black players and a revered ambassador for the game. His journey from the segregated South to baseball immortality remains one of the most powerful American stories ever told.