Baseball legend Willie Mays died at the age of 93 and played professional baseball in Trenton

For some of us baseball fans of a certain age, Willie Mays was a childhood hero.

He didn’t play for my team. I remember him mostly as a San Francisco Giant. He died peacefully at home on Tuesday afternoon.

Mays was invited to perform at Rickwood Field in Birmingham, Alabama, the oldest surviving baseball stadium from the Negro Leagues era.

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He couldn’t have been there for health reasons, but he had agreed to report from home via satellite. Unfortunately, it didn’t work out.

Willie Mays’ professional baseball career began there in 1948, when he played for the Birmingham Black Barons of the Negro League before graduating from high school.

After graduating from high school in 1950, he signed with the Giants and was sent to their minor league club, the Trenton Giants.

He played 81 games for the Trenton Giants. He quickly proved to be a standout player, with a batting average of .353, 20 doubles, eight triples, an on-base percentage of .438 and an impressive slugging percentage of .510.

He was drafted to the New York Giants in 1951, where he spent most of his Hall of Fame career.

As kids, we all wanted to be Willie Mays. We wanted to hit like him and play in the outfield like him. This rare video was called “the catch” because of his incredible ability to catch a fly ball over his shoulder.

Not only could he pursue fly balls with incredible speed, but he could also throw runners away from his position deep in the outfield.

We all have fond memories of the “Say Hey Kid,” especially considering his major league career began here in Trenton, New Jersey.

The opinions expressed in the above post are solely those of New Jersey 101.5 talk show host Dennis Malloy.

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