Willie Mays

Pro team(s)

New York Giants, San Francisco Giants, New York Mets

Hall of Fame

⭐ National Baseball Hall of Fame

Willie Howard Mays Jr. was born on May 6, 1931, in Westfield, Alabama (now Fairfield, in Jefferson County), and grew up in the Fairfield area, attending Fairfield Industrial High School. His father, Willie Mays Sr., played outfield for the Birmingham Black Barons of the Negro Leagues, and the younger Mays joined that team himself while still in high school, playing under manager Piper Davis at age 16. The New York Giants signed him in 1950 for $4,000, and after a brief minor-league stint he arrived in the major leagues in May 1951, promptly hitting a home run off Warren Spahn. He went on to have one of the greatest careers in the history of professional sports. He hit 660 career home runs — third on the all-time list. He won 12 consecutive Gold Gloves in center field (1957-1968). He was a 24-time All-Star. He won two NL MVP awards (1954, 1965). He won the 1954 World Series with the Giants, in which he made the defensive play known simply as "The Catch" — a full-sprint, over-the-shoulder catch of Vic Wertz's deep drive to center field in Game 1 that is almost universally regarded as the greatest defensive play in the history of baseball. Managers, players, coaches, and writers who saw him play consistently said the same thing: they had never seen a more complete baseball player. He hit for average, hit for power, ran the bases brilliantly, and played center field with a joy and athleticism that seemed to exist in a category by itself. He was inducted into the National Baseball Hall of Fame in 1979 in his first year of eligibility. Born and raised in Fairfield, Alabama.