Giants legend Willie Mays dies at the age of 93

Mays’ legacy lives on at Oracle Park, located at 24 Willie Brown Plaza, where a 9-foot-tall bronze statue of the late baseball player has greeted fans for more than two decades.

Mays was born on May 6, 1931, in Westfield, Alabama, a coal mining town outside Birmingham. His father, “Cat” Mays, was a semi-pro baseball player for the Westfield team in the Tennessee Coal and Iron League. While attending Fairfield Industrial High School, which did not have a baseball team, Willie played second baseman and center field alongside his father on the Fairfield Industrial League team and the semi-pro Gray Sox.

Mays made his professional debut in the Negro Leagues in 1948, when he was just 16 years old. He played for the Birmingham Black Barons of the Negro Leagues before joining the then-New York Giants in 1951 and following the team to San Francisco when it relocated in 1958.

According to ESPN, Mays was affectionately called “Say Hey Kid” after American sportswriter Barney Kremenko of the New York Journal gave him the nickname during his rookie season because of his tendency to say “Hey” when addressing his teammates.