Willie Mays, San Francisco Giants legend, dead at 93

At the time of his death, May had been the oldest living member of the Baseball Hall of Fame.

Nicknamed the “Say Hey Kid” because of the way he greeted people, Mays joined the Birmingham Black Barons of the Negro American League in 1948 at age 16, per the MLB. In 1951, he joined the New York Giants.

“I arrived in New York City on a Friday at 4 o’clock,” Mays said during his Hall of Fame induction ceremony in 1979, per CBS News. “Scared to death with three bats in my little briefcase, my glove, I didn’t have a uniform, I didn’t have a hat.”

At the end of his first season, he was named the National League Rookie of the Year, per the MLB.

Mays would go on to play 21 seasons with the Giants before being traded to the New York Mets for the 1972-73 season, which would be his last. He finished his career with 3,293 hits and 660 home runs.

Mays was named the league’s Most Valuable Player twice and won the World Series with the Giants in 1954.

He retired in 1973 with 24 All-Star awards and was inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame in 1979.

The Giants retired his No. 24 jersey on May 12, 1972, and the Mets did the same 50 years later on August 27, 2022.

Mays married Margherite Wendell Chapman in 1956, and they adopted a son, Michael, together before divorcing in 1963. In 1971, he married Mae Louise Allen, who died from Alzheimer’s disease in 2013 at the age of 74, per the MLB.

Mays died the day after he told the San Francisco Chronicle he would not be able to attend the Negro Leagues tribute game between the Giants and St. Louis Cardinals in Birmingham, Alabama, on Thursday, June 20.

“My father has passed away peacefully and among loved ones,” Michael Mays told the Chronicle on Tuesday. “I want to thank you all from the bottom of my broken heart for the unwavering love you have shown him over the years. You have been his life’s blood.”