Speaker 1: Right now though, it is time for the Way Black
Speaker 1: History Fact and Today's Way Black History Fact is sponsored
Speaker 1: by Major Threads for Fashionable Innovative Sports, where checkmajorthreads dot com. Today,
Speaker 1: I'm gonna share a bit from Wikipedia about Willie Mays
Speaker 1: for those who don't know. He passed away this past week,
Speaker 1: and you know, he did a lot in terms of
Speaker 1: bringing folks around to black people playing in baseball. So
Speaker 1: we're gonna share just a little bit about him and
Speaker 1: just kind of commemorate his life. He lived a full life,
Speaker 1: died very happy and content. So this isn't a sad moment.
Speaker 1: This is a celebration. But Willie Howard Mays Junior born
Speaker 1: nineteen thirty one through June eighteenth, twenty twenty four, nickname
Speaker 1: the say Hey Kid, was an American professional baseball centerfielder
Speaker 1: who played twenty three seasons in Major League Baseball. Regarded
Speaker 1: as one of the greatest players ever, May's ranked second
Speaker 1: behind only Babe Ruth on most all time lists, including
Speaker 1: those of These Sporting News and ESPN. May's played in
Speaker 1: the National League between nineteen fifty one and nineteen seventy
Speaker 1: three for the New York Slash San Francisco Giants and
Speaker 1: New York Mets. Born in West Alabama, Mayze was an
Speaker 1: all around athlete. Several Major League teams were interested in
Speaker 1: signing Mayze, but they had to wait until he graduated
Speaker 1: high school to offer him a contract. Mayes's professional baseball
Speaker 1: career began in nineteen forty eight, when he played briefly
Speaker 1: during the summer with the Chattanooga chew Choose, a Negro
Speaker 1: Minor League team. Later that year, Mays joined the Birmingham
Speaker 1: Black Bearons of the Negro American League, where he was
Speaker 1: known as Buck. The Black Barons were managed by Piper Davis,
Speaker 1: a teammate of Mayz's father on the Industrial team. When
Speaker 1: Fairfield Industrial principal et Oliver threatened to suspend Mays for
Speaker 1: playing professional ball, Davis and Mayes's father worked out in
Speaker 1: an agreement Mays would only play home games for the
Speaker 1: Black Bearons. In return, he could still play high school football.
Speaker 1: Mays helped Birmingham advance the nineteen forty eight Negro World Series,
Speaker 1: where they lost four to one to the Homestead Grays.
Speaker 1: He hit zero point twenty six to two for the
Speaker 1: season and stood out because of his excellent fielding and
Speaker 1: base running debut in MLB with the Giants and won
Speaker 1: the Rookie of the Year award in nineteen fifty one
Speaker 1: after hitting twenty home runs to help the Giants win
Speaker 1: their first Pennant in fourteen years. In nineteen fifty four,
Speaker 1: he won the NL Most Valuable Player Award, leading the
Speaker 1: Giants to their last World Series title before their move
Speaker 1: to the West Coast. His over the shoulder catch in
Speaker 1: Game one of the nineteen fifty four World Series is
Speaker 1: one of the most famous baseball plays of all time.
Speaker 1: After the Giants moved to San Francisco, Mays went on
Speaker 1: to win another MVP award in nineteen sixty five and
Speaker 1: also led the Giants to the nineteen sixty two World Series,
Speaker 1: this time losing to the New York Yankees. He ended
Speaker 1: his career with a return to New York after a
Speaker 1: mid season trade to the New York Mets in nineteen
Speaker 1: seventy two, retiring after the team's trip to the nineteen
Speaker 1: seventy three World Series. He served as coach for the
Speaker 1: Mets for the rest of the decade and later rejoined
Speaker 1: the Giants as a special assistant to the president and
Speaker 1: general manager. The Giants retired his uniform number twenty four.
Speaker 1: Remember that twenty four in nineteen seventy two, and the
Speaker 1: address of their home stadium at and T. Bive is
Speaker 1: twenty four Willie Mays Plaza. His bronze statue in front
Speaker 1: of the main entrance is surrounded by twenty four palm trees,
Speaker 1: and the right field wall is twenty four feet high.
Speaker 1: Mays was elected to the Baseball Hall of Fame in
Speaker 1: nineteen seventy nine, his first year of eligibility, and was
Speaker 1: named to the Major League Baseball All Century Team in
Speaker 1: nineteen ninety nine. Mays was awarded the Presidential Medal of
Speaker 1: Freedom in two thousand and fifteen. So again, just an
Speaker 1: amazing figure. You know, I'm not the biggest sports person,
Speaker 1: but I definitely know who Willy Mays is. I definitely
Speaker 1: know who Jackie Robinson is. And you know, this is
Speaker 1: way black history, so we just thought we'd incorporated into
Speaker 1: our way black history fact anything else can. And shout
Speaker 1: out to Major League Baseball for finally making Negro league
Speaker 1: statistics a part of Major League Baseball stats so that
Speaker 1: Negro league players can be recognized as members of the
Speaker 1: professional leagues and not some other side antillary league