{"id":234110,"date":"2024-06-19T14:07:37","date_gmt":"2024-06-19T14:07:37","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/michigandigitalnews.com\/index.php\/2024\/06\/19\/who-was-willie-mays-5-things-to-know-about-the-late-baseball-player-hollywood-life\/"},"modified":"2025-06-25T17:16:41","modified_gmt":"2025-06-25T17:16:41","slug":"who-was-willie-mays-5-things-to-know-about-the-late-baseball-player-hollywood-life","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/michigandigitalnews.com\/index.php\/2024\/06\/19\/who-was-willie-mays-5-things-to-know-about-the-late-baseball-player-hollywood-life\/","title":{"rendered":"Who Was Willie Mays? 5 Things to Know About the Late Baseball Player \u2013 Hollywood Life"},"content":{"rendered":"

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Willie Mays<\/strong> will always be known as one of the GOATs in baseball. Known as the \u201cSay Hey Kid\u201d in the MLB, the late San Francisco Giant died<\/a> at the age of 93 in June 2024. The team confirmed the news of his death in a statement shared to social media.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt is with great sadness that we announce that San Francisco Giants Legend and Hall of Famer Willie Mays passed away peacefully this afternoon at the age of 93,\u201d the Giants tweeted<\/a> on June 18.<\/p>\n

Former president Barack Obama \u2014 who awarded Mays with the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 2015 \u2014 also paid tribute to the late baseball player.<\/p>\n

\u201cWillie Mays wasn\u2019t just a singular athlete, blessed with an unmatched combination of grace, skill and power,\u201d Obama tweeted<\/a>. \u201cHe was also a wonderfully warm and generous person \u2014 and an inspiration to an entire generation. I\u2019m lucky to have spent time with him over the years, and Michelle and I send our deepest condolences to his family.\u201d<\/p>\n

Learn more about Mays, his life and career below.<\/p>\n

\"Willie
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Mays Played for the Giants for 20+ Years<\/h2>\n

From 1951 through 1972, Mays played for the Giants, who were first known as the New York Giants before they relocated to San Francisco. For most of his prominent career, the Alabama native was a center fielder.<\/p>\n

He Was a NY Met<\/h2>\n

After leaving the Giants in 1972, Mays played for the New York Mets from 1972 to 1973.<\/p>\n

Mays Made \u2018The Catch\u2019 in 1954<\/h2>\n

In game 1 of the 1954 World Series, Mays made what\u2019s considered the most iconic catch \u2014 dubbed \u201cthe catch\u201d \u2014 in baseball history. During the eighth inning, Mays made an over-the-shoulder catch in the outfield, then threw the ball back to the infield fast enough to prevent Cleveland from scoring. \u00a0After playing extra innings, the Giants won the game.<\/p>\n

His Real Name Was Willie, Not William<\/h2>\n

Despite how Willie is a popular nickname and abbreviation for William, Mays\u2019 real name was, in fact, Willie. Throughout his baseball career, Mays earned the nickname, \u201cThe Say Hey Kid.\u201d<\/p>\n

Mays Was Married Twice<\/h2>\n

In 1956, Mays married Marghuerite Wendell Chapman, and the former spouses adopted a son named Michael. Mays and Chapman divorced in 1963.<\/p>\n

Less than a decade later, Mays married second wife Mae Louise Allen. In 1997, she was diagnosed with Alzheimer\u2019s Disease, and she died in 2013.<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n

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[ad_1] Image Credit: Getty Images Willie Mays will always be known as one of the GOATs in baseball. Known as the \u201cSay Hey Kid\u201d in<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":234111,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_uf_show_specific_survey":0,"_uf_disable_surveys":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[150],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/michigandigitalnews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/234110"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/michigandigitalnews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/michigandigitalnews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/michigandigitalnews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/michigandigitalnews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=234110"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/michigandigitalnews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/234110\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/michigandigitalnews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/234111"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/michigandigitalnews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=234110"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/michigandigitalnews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=234110"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/michigandigitalnews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=234110"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}