Baseball Field
Willie Mays and the baseball field are two things that are synonymous. Bobby Thomson may have hit the home run in the 1951 pennant playoff with the Dodgers on the baseball field, but it was Willie Mays who had made the difference all season long. Joining a struggling Giant team in late May, Willie was like a buoyant transfusion. Playing center field with a dash and verve that amazed opponents and stimulated teammates, throwing out base runners with as powerful an arm as there was in baseball, and delivering clutch hits throughout the summer, Willie made the difference.
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Willie Mays’ baseball field was filled with a high-pitched giggle coming from the unassuming star. Growing up in a suburb of Birmingham, Willie was encouraged by his father to play ball, and by the time the boy was 17 he was playing professionally alongside his father for the Birmingham Black Barons in the Negro League. Scouted and bypassed by several clubs, Mays was seen in the spring of 1950 by Giant scout Eddie Montague, who was absolutely dazzled by the youngster and strongly urged his employers to sign him. Willie was soon on his way to the Trenton, New Jersey, club of the Class B Interstate League. In the opinion of many who watched Mays starting out on his baseball field, he was to become the greatest of modern-day ballplayers, the most complete talent since DiMaggio. It wasn’t just that Mays was without fault on a baseball diamond, it was that his many talents and qualities were of supernova magnitude. A man who within a few years’ time leads the league in batting, home runs, triples, stolen bases, total bases, slugging percentage, and outfield assists, is more of a planet than a star.
Drag For Baseball Fields
As much a part of the Mays legend and his baseball field was the carbonation in his personality and the salutary effect it had on his teammates. Mays’s 660 lifetime home runs have slotted him third on the all-time scroll. Sometimes overlooked in the considerations of Willie’s records are the two seasons he lost to military services in the early part of his career. If not for that lost time, it would in all probability have been Willie’s home run record rather than Ruth’s that Henry Aaron broke in 1974. Willie Mays and his baseball field are legends of their time and forever.
