Willie Mays Jr. 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.

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11. He graduated high school in 1950. No information given on the name of the school.

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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.

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22. They adopted a three-year-old boy, Michael, in 1959. Although the couple divorced in 1961, he and his son remained close.

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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.

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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.

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39. In his 1988 autobiography, Say Hey, he credited Leo Durocher with inspiring him to believe in himself.

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41. He is not really that important anymore, but will always be remembered for his achievements in history.