Willie Mays
Willie Mays
Willie Howard Mays, Jr., nicknamed "The Say Hey Kid", is an American former Major League Baseballcenter fielder who spent almost all of his 22 season career playing for the New York and San Francisco Giants, before finishing with the New York Mets. He was elected to the Baseball Hall of Fame in 1979, his first year of eligibility...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionBaseball Player
Date of Birth6 May 1931
CountryUnited States of America
baseball college thinking
The greatest challenge I think is adjusting to not playing baseball. The reason for that is I had to come out of baseball and come into the business world, not being a college graduate, not being educated to come into the business world the way I should have.
thinking play good-things
I think I was programmed to do good things when I came into the majors. I knew how to play.
thinking people guy
I'm not the type of guy to go out and just say, 'Hey, I'm raising my fist to do this and do that.' I don't think I'm that type of guy. I wasn't a leader the way other people may have wanted me to be.
thinking differences mind
What you are thinking, what shape your mind is in, is what makes the biggest difference of all.
baseball thinking player
I think I was the best baseball player I ever saw.
closer eyes seen tearing
It was all I could do to not scream. If they were closer they may have seen my eyes tearing up. Man, that hurt.
badly baseball best best-friends came coach drafted friend gave mays meet pro willie
I wanted badly to play and coach (Mike) Goldschmidt gave me that opportunity. My best friend came up here and told me about the program. I want to be drafted after this season. Ultimately, I want to play pro baseball and meet Willie Mays in person.
decided game innings knew played playing setting until worried
We knew we had to keep playing until the game was decided one way or the other. We played 10, 15 innings sometimes. The All-Star Game was important to us. We weren't worried about setting records. We were worried about winning.
american-athlete black father money particular picked time
And my father didn't have money for me to go to college. And at that particular time they didn't have black quarterbacks, and I don't think I could have made it in basketball, because I was only 5' 11". So I just picked baseball.
It's not hard. When I'm not hitting, I don't hit nobody. But when I'm hitting, I hit anybody.
american-athlete
I didn't say I was that smart, I said I went to class and I enjoyed what I was doing.
american-athlete catch course people regular
People talk about that catch and, I've said this many times, that I've made better catches than that many times in regular season. But of course in my time, you didn't have a lot of television during the regular season. A lot of people didn't see me do a lot of things.
jackie majors name robinson
Robinson was important to all blacks. To make it into the majors and to take all the name calling, he had to be something special. He had to take all this for years, not just for Jackie Robinson, but for the nation.
leave mickey
You can't leave Mickey (Mantle) off. Mickey would have to be in there.