Long Before Willie Mays dawned the black and orange with Giants across his chest, he was a Birmingham Black Baron. His pro baseball origins started when he was a 17-year-old, playing for one of th…
San Francisco Giants’ greats Willie Mays and Willie McCovey were on hand at a pre game ceremony before the game between the San Francisco 49ers and the Atlanta Falcons played at Candlestick Park in San Francisco, Calif., on Monday, Dec. 23, 2013. Long Before Willie Mays dawned the black and orange with Giants across his chest, he was a Birmingham Black Baron.
“After all these years and it is still here,” Mays said in a statement posted on X/Twitter by the Giants on Monday. “So am I. How about that?” “You play baseball and I’ll make sure you eat,” said Mays’ father, Howard “Cat” Mays Sr. in Willie Mays’ autobiography by James S. Hirsch titled “Willie Mays: The life, the legend.”
In his first game as a Black Baron, Mays sat the bench. According to Hirsch, Davis told Mays to “watch what’s going on.” “It was my start,” Mays said in the Monday statement. “My first job. You never forget that. Rickwood Field is where I played my first home game, and playing there was IT; everything I wanted.”
Players were still not making as much money as their MLB counterparts and did not get the same opportunities that other white players did, but Mays continued to excel on the field.
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