Willie Mays Or Say Hey Kid Essay, Research Paper

1. The correct name of my person is Willie Howard Mays Jr. 2. His nickname was

?The Say Hey Kid?. 3. Mays was born May 6, 1931. 4. He was born in

Westfield, Alabama., just outside the major city of Birmingham. 5. The names of

his parents were not known, but his father?s nickname was ?Kitty Kat?. 6.

He was the oldest of twelve in his family. 7. The name of the town he lived in

as a child was called Westfield. 8. Both Mr. and Mrs. Mays were athletic. Mr.

Mays played baseball on the all-black teams of the segregated south, as had his

father before him. Mrs. Mays had been a champion sprinter in her school. When he

was growing up, his father worked in a steel mill, and played on a

semi-professional team sponsored by the mill. He began teaching young Mays to

catch a ball even before he could walk. By 14, he had joined his father on the

mill team. 9. His high school had no baseball team, so he played basketball and

football, but before he finished high school, it became clear that baseball

would be his career. 10. No information given. 11. He graduated high school in

1950. No information given on the name of the school. 12. No information given.

13. No information given. 14. No information given. 15. This promising career of

a professional baseball player was briefly interrupted when Mays was drafted

into the Army. His team failed to win the pennant during the two seasons he was

absent, but he returned to the Giants in 1954 to lead them into the World Series

against the Cleveland Indians. Other than that he never had to work. 16. He

lived in many different areas, because he played baseball. Westfield, near

Birmingham was the place where he grew up in Alabama. He was moved from Trenton,

New Jersey to New York City also. Mays had traveled from Chattanooga, Memphis,

and had been through all parts of the country. In New York, he had played with

the New York Cubans. Mr. Mays had played against Philadelphia, and in

Pittsburgh, against the Newark Eagles. He had been to all the big cities. 17. In

1956, he married a divorced woman two years older than he was. 18. The name of

his spouse was Marghuertie Wendell Kennedy Chapman. He later, remarried, in

1971, to social worker Mae Allen. 19. No information given. 20. No information

given. 21. No information given. 22. They adopted a three-year-old boy, Michael,

in 1959. Although the couple divorced in 1961, he and his son remained close.

23. No information given. 24. No information given. 25. He played for the New

York and San Francisco Giants; and briefly at the end of his career, for the New

York Mets. 26. Mays made a great contribution to his occupation, by setting

records, winning games, and earning awards and titles. 27. With his batting

average of .345 and his 41 home runs, he led the league in 1954. Awards and

honors were showered upon him. He was voted the National League Most Valuable

Player in 1954, named Player of the year by The Sporting News, and voted Male

Athlete of the year by the Associated Press poll. He also received the Hickok

Belt, studded with diamonds worth ten thousand dollars, as the professional

athlete of the year. 28. His impact on society was large. He greatly influenced

anyone who watched him. 29. With his 660 home runs in twenty-two years of

playing ball, Mays ranks third, behind Hank Aaron and Babe Ruth, on the all-time

list. He seemed destined to play baseball from the age of six months, when his

father tried to get him to walk by getting him to chase a ball. His

record-breaking achievements as well as his entertaining autobiographies show

how well he used talents to raise the status of the game he loved. 30. His

contributions were mainly in baseball and setting records. Mays played in every

All-Star Game from 1954 through 1973. 31. He is still alive today. 32. He is

still alive today. 33. He is still alive today. 34. He was not the first black

ballplayer, but he had his own barrier to break through. A kind of gentle, good

?natured racism, but racism none the less. 35. In one of the four games

against the Indians, Mays made such a superb catch that it was widely talked

about in public and was considered the greatest ever made on a baseball field.

He was an impressive defensive player because of his famous catches and his

perfect throws at home plate that caught runners out. 36. No information was

given. 37. Mays learned almost as fast as he ran, and his hard hitting and

astonishing fielding skills-along with an inborn sense of showmanship, which

made him wear a cap a size or two large so that it would add a little extra

drama to his catches by falling off- soon helped energize his teammates. It was

in large part his presence that drove the Giants to the pennant in 1951. Mays

was an instant hero, attracting little of the raw racism that had greeted Jackie

Robinson just four years earlier. 38. No information was given. 39. In his 1988

autobiography, Say Hey, he credited Leo Durocher with inspiring him to believe

in himself. 40. No information was given. 41. He is not really that important

anymore, but will always be remembered for his achievements in history.