Willie Mays, the electrifying baseball player full of power and grace, has died at the age of 93

Mays hit 52 home runs in 1965, joining Ruth, Jimmie Foxx, Ralph Kiner and Mantle as the only players to hit at least 50 home runs more than once in a season. On May 4, 1966, Mays surpassed the National League record for home runs (511) set by former Giant outfielder and manager Mel Ott.

As he approached 40, Mays was still capable of outstanding play, but he had changed.

“Willie became more withdrawn and suspicious, cautious, vulnerable and with a great deal of reason as he grew older,” wrote Leonard Koppett in “A Thinking Man’s Guide to Baseball” (1967). “Life, both personal and professional, became more complicated for him, and he had his share of heartache.” After Mays married and adopted a child, “she went through a painful divorce,” Koppett wrote.

On May 11, 1972, with the Giants’ attendance declining, Horace Stoneham, the team’s longtime owner, sent Mays to the Mets in exchange for minor league pitcher Charlie Williams, seeking long-term financial security.

Mays was in the penultimate year of a two-year contract that paid him $165,000 per season (equivalent to about $1.25 million today). When the deal was finalized, Joan Payson, the Mets president who was a shareholder in the New York Giants and a fan of Mays, guaranteed him a ten-year annual payment of $50,000 in addition to his baseball salary. After his playing days ended, he would serve as a goodwill ambassador and part-time coach.

Mays had a batting average of .167 when he joined the Mets, but on May 14, in his first game with them, he hit a home run against the Giants in front of a Sunday crowd of about 35,000 at Shea Stadium. He was 41 and his skills had waned. Swollen knees, a sore shoulder and bruised ribs hampered him over the next year, and on September 20, 1973, he announced his retirement.