(KRON) — San Francisco Giants legend Willie Mays died on Tuesday afternoon, the team announced. He was 93 years old.
Mays debuted for the Giants in 1951 and stayed with the team through 1972. He is known as one of the best players in baseball history.
“My father has passed away peacefully and among loved ones,” Mays’ son, Michael Mays, said. “I want to thank you all from the bottom of my broken heart for the unwavering love you have shown him over the years. You have been his life’s blood.”
Mays was born in Westfield, Ala. in 1931 and played his first professional baseball game with the Birmingham Black Barons of the Negro Leagues. He won the National League’s Rookie of the Year award in 1951 and league MVP in 1954, his first full season.
He helped the Giants win the 1954 World Series with perhaps the most famous catch in baseball history, racing backward through the Polo Grounds’ cavernous center field to catch the ball over his shoulder.
Mays is a baseball Hall of Famer, 24-time MLB All-Star, 12-time Gold Glove winner, two-time National League MVP and World Series champion. His 660 home runs are the sixth-most in baseball history.
Mays first joined the Giants when the team was in New York and stayed with the Giants as they moved to San Francisco in 1958.
Oracle Park, the home of the Giants, is located at 24 Willie Mays Plaza. A bronze statue of Mays sits outside the ballpark.
Nicknamed “The Say Hey Kid,” Mays was renowned for his joyous spirit when playing the game. When the Giants played in New York, he participated in “stickball” games with local kids in the streets of Harlem.
Off the field, Mays served in the army from 1952-53. He was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom by Barack Obama in 2015.
The Giants are scheduled to play a game on Thursday at Rickwood Field, a former Negro League venue in Birmingham, AL. Mays was slated to be honored at the game.
