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Chapter Three: Willie Howard Mays
After Jackie Robinson joined the Brooklyn
Dodgers, other major league teams asked
talented African American players to join
them. One of these players was center fielder
Willie Mays.
Willie Howard Mays, nicknamed the Say
Hey Kid, was born in Alabama in 1931. The
son of a baseball player, Willie Mays had
played baseball since childhood. He began
playing in the Negro leagues at the age of
sixteen, when he was still in high
school.
Willie Mays joined the New
York Giants in 1950. Willie Mays hit
twenty home runs in his first year and
was named Rookie of the Year .
He made many famous plays in center
field. In Pennsylvania, Mays sailed across the
outfield, racing to catch a fly ball that was hit
almost five hundred feet away. He lost his
baseball glove, but he managed to catch the
ball with his bare hand! What an effort!
Willie Mays was a great player in the
field. He was a powerful hitter at the plate
and a very fast runner around the bases.
Willie Mays’s talent helped lead the Giants to
the 1951 World Series.
Willie Mays scores again!
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