CELEBRATIONS HONOR WILLIE MAYS AND NEGROE LEAGUE PLAYERS AHEAD OF MLB GAME AT RICKWOOD FIELD

 BIRMINGHAM, Ala. (AP) — As Ajay Stone strolled around historic Rickwood Field and gazed at tributes displayed in honor of Willie Mays and other Negro Leaguers, he clutched a cherished memory under his arm.

It was a picture from 2004 of Mays holding Stone's then-10-month-old daughter Haley, who was wearing San Francisco Giants gear. In Mays' hand was a chunk of a chocolate chip cookie, which he was handing over for Haley to eat.

“Willie gave her that cookie. She had no teeth,” Stone remembered. "But we took the cookie and we kept it in her stroller for a year and a half. The great Willie Mays gave it to her, so it was special to us.”

Stone and his wife Christina traveled from Charlotte, North Carolina, to be in Birmingham, Alabama, on Thursday for a moment they deemed just as special.

It was hours before Rickwood Field hosted its first Major League Baseball game, as the St. Louis Cardinals beat the Giants 6-5. The game, which MLB called “A Tribute to the Negro Leagues,” was meant to honor the legacy of Mays and other Black baseball greats who left an enduring mark on the sport.

MLB planned a week of activities around Mays and the Negro Leagues, including an unveiling ceremony on Wednesday of a Willie Mays mural in downtown Birmingham. Those tributes took on a more significant meaning Tuesday afternoon when Mays died at 93. As news of his death spread throughout Birmingham, celebrations of his life ramped up.

You could hear the celebration at Rickwood Field on Thursday even before arriving at the ballpark with the rapid thumping of a drum echoing from inside the ballpark, excited murmurs from fans skipping toward the music and frequent bursts of laughter.

Inside, there were reminders of history all around.

There were photos and artifacts of baseball Hall of Famers who played at the 114-year-old ballpark, including Jackie Robinson, Josh Gibson and Satchel Paige. The original clubhouse of the Birmingham Black Barons of the Negro Leagues, where Mays got his pro start in 1948, was open. A memorial of Mays was at the front, with bobbleheads, a signed glove and his Black Barons and San Francisco Giants jerseys on display.

Outside, fans stood in line to hold a baseball bat used by Mays in 1959. They took photos sitting inside an original bus from 1947 that was typically used during barnstorming tours by Negro Leagues teams. They danced to live music and ate food from concession stands featuring menu boards designed to reflect the look and feel of the 1940s.

Eddie Torres and his son Junior wore matching Giants jerseys as they took pictures inside the ballpark. They're lifelong Giants fans who came from California for the game.

“I never even got to see Willie Mays play, but as a Giants fan, you knew what he meant to the game of baseball,” Torres said. “My son, he’s only 11. Willie Mays had such an effect on the game that even he knew who Willie Mays was."

Musical artist Jon Batiste strummed a guitar while dancing on a wooden stage near home plate just before the first pitch. Fans stood as former Negro Leaguers were helped to the field for a pregame ceremony.

Shouts of “Willie! Willie! broke out after a brief moment of silence.

For Michael Jackson, sitting in the stands at Rickwood Field reminded him of the past.

The 71-year-old Jackson played baseball in the 1970s and 80s with the East Thomas Eagles of the Birmingham Industrial League, which was a semi-professional league made up of iron and steel workers that was an integral form of entertainment in Birmingham in the 20th century.

Jackson’s baseball journey took him to Rickwood Field many times. After all these years, he was just excited that it’s still standing.

“It’s nice seeing them re-do all of this," he said, “instead of tearing it down. We played in the same ballpark they named after Willie Mays out in Fairfield (Alabama). And then I had my times out here playing at this ballpark. It's all very exciting.”

- ALANIS THAMES

MAY'S DEATH SPARKS TRIBUTE FROM BASEBALL WORLD AND BEYOND

 Tributes poured in for Willie Mays following news that the Major League Baseball great died on Tuesday at the age of 93, with the Hall of Famer being remembered as a "legend and pioneer" of the game.

Mays was an electrifying centrefielder during a 23-year playing career during which he established himself as one of the greatest all-around players of all time.

"Today we have lost a true legend," said San Francisco Giants Chairman Greg Johnson.

"In the pantheon of baseball greats, Willie Mays' combination of tremendous talent, keen intellect, showmanship, and boundless joy set him apart."

Mays, who was known as the "Say Hey Kid" because of his standard greeting, spent most of his career with the Giants -- six in New York and 15 in San Francisco -- before finishing up with the New York Mets in 1972 and 1973.

"Willie Mays was one of the greatest to ever play the game," said Mets owner Steve Cohen.

"Willie ended his Hall of Fame career in Queens and was a key piece to the 1973 NL championship team. Mays played with a style and grace like no one else."

Mays made his professional debut with the Negro League's Birmingham Black Barons at age 17. When his death was 1973 during a Barons game on Tuesday, those in attendance stood and saluted him with an applause.

Fellow Giants legend Barry Bonds, who is Mays' godson, also took to social media to pay tribute.

"I am beyond devastated and overcome with emotion," Bonds wrote on Instagram.

"I have no words to describe what you mean to me - you helped shape me to be who I am today. Thank you for being my Godfather and always being there. Give my dad a hug for me. Rest in peace Willie, I love you forever."

Teams from across MLB mourned Mays' death.

The Los Angeles Dodgers called him "incomparable" and the Boston Red Sox said he was a "legend and pioneer of the game".

The tributes also came in from outside of MLB.

"His impact extends far beyond baseball," California Governor Gavin Newsom said in a statement, while Basketball Hall of Famer Magic Johnson said on social media that Mays was "one of the main reasons I fell in love with baseball".

- Reuters 

BASEBALL LEGEND WILLIE MAYS, ALL-ROUND GREAT OF AMERICA'S PASTIME, DIES AT 93

Willie Mays, star outfielder for the San Francisco Giants, arrives on Feb. 4, 1962 at a San Francisco public playground equipped for a workout on his own. Mays, who recently signed a Giants contract for an estimated $90,000 largest in Giants history, said he wanted to limber up some as spring training is just around the corner. Robert Houston/Associated Press 1982

 

 Willie Mays, the Hall of Fame centerfielder whose all-around skills made him one of greatest baseball players of all time, died on Tuesday at the age of 93, Major League Baseball announced.

Mays, who brought an explosive exuberance to the game in his peak years, died of heart failure, the San Francisco Chronicle reported.

Mays played 23 seasons for the New York Giants, San Francisco Giants and New York Mets, from 1951 through 1973.

In his prime, he could do it all on the baseball field. Mays was the epitome of what came to be known as a "five-tool player" - meaning he was exceptional at hitting for average, hitting for power, fielding, throwing and baserunning.

But Mays' talent was only part of what made him a superstar. He also played with a verve and passion that were discernible even to spectators in the cheap seats. He was known for playing stickball with kids on the streets of Harlem, near the former Polo Grounds where he played.

In the real games, fans delighted when Mays would sprint with such speed and fury that he would run out from under his hat as he stole a base or chased down a flyball to deep centerfield.

His snag of a fly ball in the 1954 World Series, sprinting with his back toward home plate some 460 feet away, is known simply as The Catch.

"He could do everything and do it better than anyone else, (and) with a joyous grace," wrote New York Times sports columnist Arthur Daley.

Mays, known as "The Say Hey Kid" because of his standard greeting, was ranked second on The Sporting News' 1998 list of the 100 Greatest Baseball Players - behind Babe Ruth and ahead of Ty Cobb.

Baseball-Reference.com ranks him fifth all time using the modern statistic Wins Above Replacement, which measures a player's overall value, behind Ruth, pitchers Walter Johnson and Cy Young, and his godson Barry Bonds.

Mays was elected to the Baseball Hall of Fame in 1979, his first year of eligibility, won the Most Valuable Player award twice and was named to the all-star team 24 times, a record shared only with Hank Aaron and Stan Musial.

When he retired, Mays held third place on the all-time home run list with 660, behind Aaron at 755 and Ruth with 714. He was also the first ballplayer to hit 300 homers and steal 300 bases.

Willie Howard Mays Jr. was born in the gritty steel town of Westfield, Alabama, on May 6, 1931, during the segregation era and was inspired early to play ball by his father and an uncle, he said.

"My uncle would say every day, 'You're going to be a baseball player. You're going to be a baseball player, and we're gonna see to that,'" he said. "At 10, I was playing against 18-year-old guys. At 15, I was playing professional ball with the Birmingham Black Barons, so I really came very quickly in all sports."

Mays joined the New York Giants of the National League early in the 1951 season, four years after Jackie Robinson had integrated Major League Baseball. He failed to get a hit in his first 12 trips to the plate before smacking his first, a home run off future Hall of Fame pitcher Warren Spahn.

Mays went on to win Rookie of the Year honors in 1951 with a .274 average, helping the Giants come from 13 games behind the Brooklyn Dodgers before his team won the pennant on a legendary home run by Bobby Thomson. Mays, then 20 years old, was on deck when Thomson hit his home run, later telling reporters he was so nervous he prayed he would not come to bat.

Mays missed most of the 1952 season and all of 1953 while serving in the U.S. Army during the Korean War, spending much of his service time playing for the Army baseball team.

He returned to the Giants in 1954 and won the first of his two Most Valuable Player awards as he paced the Giants to a four-game World Series sweep of the Cleveland Indians. In the first game of that series, Mays pulled off The Catch, which remains one of the most memorable plays in baseball history.

At New York's Polo Grounds, the Indians' Vic Wertz hit a shot to deep centerfield. Mays turned, sprinted toward the wall, made a graceful over-the-shoulder catch and then immediately whirled around and made a perfect throw that kept two Cleveland baserunners from advancing.

"I was a guy, when I first came up, I believed I could catch any ball that stayed in the ballpark," Mays told an interviewer years later. "I guess I was kind of a cocky kid, knowing that if the ball went up, I could catch it."

In 1958, the Giants moved to San Francisco, where Mays was not quite so beloved. Fans crowding into tiny Seals Stadium, the Giants' first home, instead embraced rookie sensations Orlando Cepeda and Willie McCovey as their own.

"Mays never was to San Francisco what he was to New York," wrote sportswriter Dick Young. "When the Giants moved to California, the San Francisco fans saw Mays as 'of' New York."

The Giants moved into cavernous and windy Candlestick Park in 1960, robbing Mays of many home runs that would have gone out in a more typical ballpark.

But Mays still possessed extraordinary skills and in 1962, carried the Giants to another playoff win over the Dodgers and into the World Series.

The series was a seven-game spellbinder won by the New York Yankees when Bobby Richardson speared a line drive for the final out of the game with Mays on second base, representing what would have been the winning run.

By the late 1960s, Mays was slowing down. In May 1972, he was traded to the New York Mets and made a final World Series appearance in 1973, his last season, when the Mets lost to the Oakland Athletics in seven games. He retired later that year.

In his book "Willie's Time," baseball writer and historian Charles Einstein wrote:

"The lights were hot and the cameras rolled and you knew Willie was there because you heard that laugh. Came The Automatic Question: 'Who was the greatest player you ever saw?' His answer was prompt enough: 'I thought I was.' There was merriment in his eyes as he looked around the room. 'I hope I didn't say that wrong.'"

- Reuters 

MLB OFFICIALLY INCORPORATES STATISTICS OF FORMER NIGRO LEAGUES PLAYERS

USA TODAY Sports 

 Major League Baseball has officially incorporated statistics of former Negro Leagues players from 1920-1948 into its historical records on Wednesday in a move that saw all-time greats like Babe Ruth and Ty Cobb replaced atop some categories.

Because of the changes several MLB records, including career leader in batting average, are now held by Hall of Famer Josh Gibson while the career totals of players like Willie Mays and Jackie Robinson will also reflect their Negro Leagues totals.

"We are proud that the official historical record now includes the players of the Negro Leagues," MLB Commissioner Robert Manfred said in a news release.

"This initiative is focused on ensuring that future generations of fans have access to the statistics and milestones of all those who made the Negro Leagues possible.

"Their accomplishments on the field will be a gateway to broader learning about this triumph in American history and the path that led to Jackie Robinson's 1947 Dodger debut."

Given the changes, Gibson now holds the all-time lead with a .372 batting average, surpassing Hall of Famer Cobb's career .367 batting average. Gibson also replaced Hall of Famer Ruth atop the career slugging percentage list with a .718 total.

Gibson is now MLB's all-time career leader in batting average, slugging percentage and on-base plus slugging percentage, and holds the all-time single-season records in each of the categories.

The statistics of more than 2,300 Negro Leagues ballplayers from 1920-1948 launched on Wednesday in a newly integrated database on MLB's website.

According to the news release, it is estimated that the available Negro Leagues records between 1920-1948 are nearly 75% complete and future findings may result in additional changes to the game's all-time leaderboards.

MLB announced in 2020 that it would correct "a longtime oversight" and incorporate the statistics of the Negro Leagues, in which Black players competed after being forced out of MLB competition due to racism and segregation laws.

The changes to many long-held records follow an evaluation by the independent Negro Leagues Statistical Review Committee, which was chaired by John Thorn, the Official Historian of Major League Baseball.

"Shortened Negro League schedules, interspersed with revenue-raising exhibition games, were born of MLB’s exclusionary practices," Thorn said in the MLB release.

"To deny the best Black players of the era their rightful place among all-time leaders would be a double penalty."

- Reuters