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Willie Mays

Baseball is an outdoor sport in which a pitcher pitches a hard, fist sized ball to the hitting area of a batter. The batter hits the hard ball with a tapered, smooth, cylindrical bat made up of wood or metal. The batsman scores by running counter-clockwise within the four markers called the bases arranged at the corners of a diamond. Baseball is sometimes called hardball to differentiate it from similar games such as softball.

Willie Mays was born on May 6, 1931, in Westfield, Alabama. Mays were 20 years old when he broke into the big leagues on May 25, 1951, with the New York Giants. His height is five foot eleven inches with weight 180 lbs. Mays was the prototype of the complete player, he hit for average and power, ran the bases with intelligence and speed, played a spectacular centerfield, and possessed a great arm. He was also remarkably durable, playing in at least 150 games for 13 consecutive seasons.

Mays starred in baseball, basketball, and football at Birmingham, Alabama's Fairfax Industrial High School before joining the Birmingham Barons of the Negro National League at age 17. The New York Giants purchased his contract in 1950, and he played for Trenton of the Interstate League, then he joined the Triple-A Minneapolis Millers of the American Association in 1951.

He won four consecutive stolen-base titles from 1956 through 1959. He stole 338 bases in his career and might have had more had he and the Giants not elected to minimize his chance of injury on the basepaths. His unique 1957 performance of 20 or more doubles, triples, homers, and stolen bases established his claim as one of the game's greatest all-around offensive threats.

Along with Mantle and Aaron, Mays was the dominant slugger of the 1950s and 1960s. From 1958 through 1966, he produced eight consecutive seasons of over 100 runs and RBI, Run Batted In. In 1966, Mays passed Mel Ott's 19-year-old record of 511 National League home runs and finished his career with a total of 660, ranking him third on the all-time list behind Henry Aaron's 755 and Babe Ruth's 714. In May 1972, the fading Mays was traded to the Mets. With them, he played his final season and made his final World Series appearance on a 1973 team that had finished the year with a record just slightly over 0.500. Shortly after Mays's election to the Hall of Fame in 1979.

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