Willie Mays in Trenton

Birmingham Black Barons center fielder Willie Mays was not originally who scout Ed Montague was looking at for the New York Giants.1 On Alex Pompez’s recommendation to the Giants’ director of minor league operations, Jack Schwartz, he was looking at Barons first baseman Alonzo Perry for the Sioux City (Iowa) Soos, the Giants’ Class-A affiliate in the Western League.2

John Saccoman wrote in Mays’ SABR biography: “In a 1954 letter to Tim Cohane, the sports editor of Look magazine, Giants scout Eddie Montague stated that he was scouting the Black Barons first baseman, Alonzo Perry, for the Giants’ Sioux City Class-A club, when Mays caught his eye. He said, ‘[T]his was the greatest young player I had ever seen in my life or my scouting career.’”3

Montague and another Giants scout, Bill Harris, went to see Mays at Rickwood Field in Birmingham. Leo Durocher wrote in his book Nice Guys Finish Last that Montague reported, “[T]hey got a kid playing center field practically barefooted that’s the best ballplayer I ever looked at. You better send somebody down there with a barrelful of money and grab this kid.”4

Multiple teams had their chances to sign Mays. In 1949 a Pittsburgh Pirates scout offered the Barons $2,000 to sign and convert Mays from an outfielder to a pitcher. The Boston Braves sent its scout Bill Maughn, and owner Lou Perini offered the Barons $7,500 for Mays in 1949, but there was a major-league rule that did not allow teams to sign players while they were still in high school. Mays graduated from Fairfield Industrial High School on May 31, 1950.

The Braves sent another scout, Hugh Wise. Wise watched Mays get one hit in a doubleheader on May 21 and said that one day was enough. The Braves did not make an offer because they had recently spent more than $100,000 to purchase outfielder Sam Jethroe from the Brooklyn Dodgers. Dodgers scout Wid Matthews said in 1949 that Mays could not hit curveballs. A second Dodgers scout, Ray Blades, was sent to see Mays in 1950. The Dodgers already had three established stars: Roy Campanella, Don Newcombe, and Jackie Robinson. The White Sox hired John Donaldson as their first African American full-time scout. He recommended Mays, but they did not listen to his recommendation to sign him. The Red Sox sent scouts Larry Woodall and George Digby, but the Red Sox did not sign Mays because they signed the Barons’ Piper Davis. The Yankees sent Bill McCorry and he had the same evaluation as the Dodgers’ Matthews: that Mays could not hit a curve. Altogether, six teams had a chance to sign Mays before the Giants had their chance.

On June 22, 1951, “with an outlay of $15,000, of which the Birmingham Black Barons will receive $9,000 and the player $6,000, the New York Giants outbid five major league clubs.”5 According to an August 15, 1951, Sporting News article, “the Black Barons [were] temporarily low on ready cash because their bus had gone up in flames in the Holland Tunnel after a New York game.”6 Birmingham general manager Eddie Glennon thought Mays could be a pitcher because of his throwing arm. Barons manager Vic Harris wanted him in the outfield so he could play every day.

Mays was sent to the Trenton Giants of the Class-B Interstate League instead of Sioux City because of racial issues. He wrote in his autobiography, Say Hey: “But Sioux City was not the place for me at the moment. The city was in an uproar because they had buried an Indian in a whites-only cemetery only a few days before. The farm club refused to take me, fearing the consequences and ‘bad’ publicity. I was surprised, but I guess I should have been shocked. I had never heard of anything like that before. Then again, I had never played outside the Negro Leagues either.”7

He wrote that his train ride from Birmingham to Hagerstown “seemed like an eternity that spring day in 1950. I kept fumbling with the bag of sandwiches that Aunt Sarah had made for me, but I was too nervous to eat. Look out the window, look at the bag, look at the hands. This ride was different. This was taking me to organized ball – the first big step in living out my boyhood dream of playing in the majors someday. … I had that chance now and I couldn’t wait to play for Trenton – so much so that I even skipped my senior prom so I could there early.”8

Mays was greeted by Trenton Giants radio broadcaster Bus Saidt at the Hagerstown train station. He met his manager, Chick Genovese, at Hagerstown Municipal Stadium. Mays wrote that Genovese was “someone who would be important to me in my first experience with so-called organized baseball. He greeted me warmly and made me feel comfortable.”9

Mays was not in the Trenton starting lineup on June 23. Jason Arnoff wrote that “Len Matte also told Bill Klink about the time after Willie Mays first joined the team for a game in Hagerstown, Maryland. Before the game Matte was working with Trenton manager Chick Genovese, who was hitting fly balls to the new player Mays. Chick Genovese was hitting fly balls all over the outfield forcing Mays to run hither and yon to catch the balls. After watching Mays catch balls in far-flung parts of the outfield, Genovese turned to Matte and said, ‘This guy has the kind of reflexes no one else has.’”10 Tom McCarthy wrote in Baseball in Trenton, “there is no doubt that Mays refined his famous basket catch in the Negro Leagues and in the minor leagues, but some credit Matte for helping Mays with the basket catch.”11

Mays also recalled his first professional weekend with Trenton in Hagerstown: “I was the first black in that particular league. And, we played in a town called Hagerstown, Maryland. I’ll never forget this day, on a Friday. And, they call you all kind of names there, “n****r” this, and “n****r” that. I said to myself – and this is why Piper Davis came in – in my mind, “Hey, whatever they call you, they can’t touch you. Don’t talk back.” Now this was on a Friday. And the Friday night I hit two doubles and a home run; they never clapped. The next day I hit the same thing. There was a house out there in the back there, I hit that twice. Now they started clapping a little bit. You know how that is, you know, they clapped a little bit. By Sunday there was a big headline in the paper: “Do Not Bother Mays.” You understand what I’m saying? They call you all kinds of names. Now this is the first two games I played. By Sunday, I come to bat, they’re all clapping. And I’m wondering, wait a minute, what happened to the Friday, what happened to the Saturday? This is running through my mind now.”12

Mays added the following: “What I didn’t get over was the long train ride that had brought me there. Although I did feel good during batting practice – I hit six or seven balls over the fence – in the game or for the rest of the four-game series. I started my organized baseball career oh-for-Maryland, and I in a segregated town, to boot. I wondered whether my showing confirmed some of those rednecks’ feelings that I wouldn’t do well in the big-time. What a way to start. And then after the game I found I couldn’t stay with the team at their hotel. The club had already made arrangements for me to spend the weekend in a small hotel for blacks.”13

He stayed at the Harmon Hotel in a segregated section of Hagerstown. James S. Hirsch wrote in his book, Willie Mays: The Life, The Legend: “Mays wasn’t particular about hotels, but he had never been separated from his teammates before. He knew about segregation, but his segregation had always been collective – with friends, relatives, or teammates who derived strength and pride from their unity. Now he was segregated and alone.”14

Some of his teammates noticed this and sometime after midnight, there was a knocking on his window. Three of his teammates, including outfielder Bob Easterbrook, climbed the fire escape and were entering his room and checking in on him. The players stayed, slept on the floor in Mays’ room, got up at 6 A.M., climbed out the window, and went to back to the Alexander Hotel. No one said anything about the late-night visit and no else had any knowledge. He slept soundly on his first night in the minors.

Mays reflected that “Chick Genovese took a special interest in me. I wouldn’t have had a better manager for my first year in organized ball, and since he was a former outfielder, it made the whole thing that much better. … Chick quickly sized up my problem over the first few games: I was pressing. He made me aware of what I was doing, and told me just to relax and not over swing – the base hits would come.”15

He later added in his autobiography that “Chick was my biggest rooter. He always watched over me. He knew about the effect that segregation was having on me, and he also knew there was nothing he could do about it. But there were things he could do in his own way. I didn’t show it, and I never spoke about it, but maybe he could sense my loneliness and anxiety. There were times when he’d eat with me in a kitchen in a restaurant, either in Hagerstown or Wilmington, so I wouldn’t be alone. Those were moments I still treasure. It was the first time I had been off by myself somewhere, for even when I was on the road with the Barons in a segregated situation, at least all of us were segregated at the same time in the same place.”16

Mays made his Trenton debut vs. the York (Pennsylvania) Roses on June 26. He contributed two hits in the 4-3 win in front of 1,321 at Dunn Field. Defensively, “Three of his five putouts were remarkable catches, with throws to third base and home plate illustrating his exceptional throwing arm. In the third inning, he sped backward and leaped high enough to spear a long fly with his bare hand, much to the amazement of the onlookers. It was quickly realized that an unusually gifted player had joined the Trenton team.”17 Jason Arnoff writes that “Bill Klink, in The Ol’ Ball Game, first quotes Eric Rodin, Trenton’s right fielder that day. Rodin describes York’s Bill Biddle hitting a ball to deep center field, a ball that would have carried over the fence. He assumed that Mays would not catch the ball. However, Mays did get to the ball, but as he reached up with his gloved hand, the ball went by his glove. Rodin continues, ‘but his reflexes were such that he went up with his bare hand against the fence, caught the ball and came down.’”18

On June 28, Mays hit his first professional home run, a grand slam, in a 21-8 win on the road against the Sunbury Athletics.

Willie Mays and John Shea wrote in the book 24 that “Trenton second baseman Harry ‘Ace’ Bell said that Mays was a target of insults in other cities, including Sunbury, Pennsylvania, where the Philadelphia A’s had a farm team. Many of these fans around the league hadn’t seen an African American play ball and were offended or even enraged by the notion of an integrated team. Mays turned heads with his elite performance and passion and began to soften some long-entrenched feelings of resistance and even hatred. Bell was impressed with how Willie rose above the abuse and focused on playing ball. ‘Willie was such a nice kid,’ Bell said. ‘He was friendly with everybody, and he would praise everybody. He’d be your best fan. And you could tell right away he could hit. There wasn’t anything that fooled Willie. I’m sure his Birmingham team had a better bunch of ballplayers than what Trenton had.’”19

Mays and Shea added: “‘We had guys looking out for him, making sure he had a room and transportation,’ said Bell, who joined the team about the same time as Mays, after graduating college. ‘A lot of places wouldn’t accept a black person. Wilmington, Hagerstown. He had to go to a different part of the town. Three or four of the kids volunteered to find a place for him in those cities. They made sure he had a room. It was always in the black section. That’s how Willie lived when we were on the road. That’s the way it was at the time.’”20

Mays, according to Say Hey, “lived in a boarding house on Spring Street in Trenton, which was five blocks from Dunn Field. The room was fine. On the road, though, the Giants, thinking I was lonely by myself, sent Trenton a pitcher named Jose Fernandez. His father was the manager of the New York Cubans. They played their home games in the Polo Grounds. We didn’t get along too well. He was a hot dog from New York and I was a country boy. One evening he didn’t wake me up in time to make the team bus and Chick jumped all over him. Fernandez didn’t last long. He was gone in a month. I was happy again.”21

Traveling on the road on the team’s bus, Genovese would try to have his players sing songs. Hirsch wrote that “Mays would start off with ‘Clarence the Clocker,’ and soon everyone would join in. In Mays’ eyes, the bus rides were no different than those he had taken with the Black Barons, teeming with goodwill and camaraderie, young men who loved baseball and dreamed of making it to the big leagues. In 1950, white Americans across the country denied blacks equal treatment on buses, but on the Trenton Giant bus, Willie Mays received special treatment. In need of rest, he would pile the duffel bags in the back, lie down, and sleep.”22

Saccoman wrote that “Mays also recalled a catch he made in Trenton in 1950. He said that Lou Heyman of Wilmington hit a ball 405 feet to dead center and he caught it barehanded, bounced off the wall, and threw the ball all the way home on the fly.”23 Mays added, “Nobody knew about it because it was just another game in a small town.”24

Within a month, Hagerstown fans warmed up to Willie as well. On July 19, Hagerstown Daily Mail sports columnist Dick Kelly wrote that Willie Mays was now turning in “a very credible performance” and “making the grade in fine style with the Trenton Giants.”25

Hirsch wrote that “Mays experimented on the field. During batting practice, he saw how close he could play in center while still being able to track down deep flies. On ground balls, he realized that if high grass or soft ground balls slowed the ball, he could reach hits in the gap while also snaring low line drives that would otherwise go for singles. For years, Mays would walk on the outfield grass before a game and throw a ball down to determine if the surface was fast or slow.”26 He added that “Mays thought he had already mastered baseball strategy, but Genovese, along with Trenton Giants general manager Bill McKechnie, expanded his education. Sitting on the bench before game or riding on the bus, the two men fired questions at Mays.”27

Genovese would send the Giants reports on Mays’ progress. For example: “He’s a major league prospect. Possesses strong arms and wrist, runs good, has good baseball instinct. Wants to learn. Should play AAA ball next year.”28 Giants owner Horace Stoneham also noticed and would visit with some of his staff to Trenton more than once to see Mays.

Mays wrote about the origins of where “Say hey!” came from: “My teammates started to call me Junior, and I began to relax, even though I was only nineteen years old. I’d often shout back, ‘Say hey!’ whenever I wanted their attention. These were all new people to me and I didn’t know their names. ‘Say hey!’ was guaranteed to get them to listen to me.”29

As the season progressed after his first professional weekend in Hagerstown, Mays kept calm when opposing pitchers sometimes threw at his head. However, “this time I just glared back at the pitcher and he got my message that he couldn’t intimidate me. As if that wasn’t enough, Eric Rodin, the next batter, did something whose message couldn’t be mistaken. After I made out, Rodin, a big rightfielder, laid down a bunt toward first base, attempting to run into the pitcher and knock him down when he tried to field it. Luckily the ball rolled foul. Who knows what would have happened? Here I was the first black ballplayer in the league’s history, and my teammate was ready to start a fight with someone over me. Even though the ball was foul, both benches emptied onto the field. It was a show of strength and support for me by my teammates, and it cleared the air.”30

Mays wrote in his autobiography: “I never believed in playing the game in a halfhearted way. And I suppose that because I put so much of myself into every at bat, every fly ball, every throw, every stolen base, that all these exertions took their toll. That first year I played hard, too. Near the end of the season, in fact, I collapsed from fatigue after playing a string of doubleheaders. One day I was so wiped out that they called for an ambulance. I’d go after every ball hit into the outfield – crashing into fences, falling on the ground, just running my head off – and think nothing of it. The other outfielders didn’t mind it at all. In fact, Mo Cunningham, our left fielder, used to kid me. He’d yell, ‘Plenty of room, Junior! We’ll let you know where the fence is.’”31

In his autobiography, Mays noted the racist epithets and profanities directed at him. He wrote that “Len Matte, our catcher, told me that he’d take care of any trouble and that I shouldn’t get involved. It was good advice. As the season wore on, there was less and less incidents and curses, until I didn’t hear them anymore. I knew, anyway that I wouldn’t be back in this league next year. I would be leaving Trenton for Minneapolis, the Class AAA in the American Association. Triple A ball was only one step from the majors.”32

Trenton finished with a 73-65 record and in fourth place, nine games behind the Wilmington Blue Rocks (Philadelphia Phillies). The Giants were 42-36 after Mays’ debut. The 42 wins after his debut were the fourth-best in the league. However, they lost 4-1 to Hagerstown in the postseason semifinals. In a February 24, 1954, Sporting News article, Genovese said, “Junior meant about three places in the standings for our club. Without him we’d finish seventh. With him we made fourth place.”33

Mays hit over .400 for most of the Trenton season, but finished with a .353 batting average, a .510 slugging percentage, and a .438 on-base percentage in 81 games. Despite not making his debut until June 25, he was voted to the 1950 Interstate League postseason all-star team along with three teammates, first baseman Robert Myers, shortstop Tomas Korczowski, and pitcher Joseph Micciche.34 Two of his teammates, right-handed pitcher Rinty Monahan (1953 Philadelphia Athletics) and outfielder Eric Rodin (1954 Giants), reached what was then termed the major leagues.35 Defensively, he led the league with 17 outfield assists. He also boosted attendance at Trenton’s Dunn Field, and whenever a runner took off from first base to second on a single, the crowd would rise in unison in expectation of a spectacular gun-down by Mays to third or home.36

“Chick’s final words to me that season were, ‘Willie, you’re going to make a lot of money one day. I hope I helped you.’”37

Mays was invited to Giants spring training in 1951 and started the season for the Minneapolis Millers of the Triple-A American Association before making his National League debut on May 25, 1951, some 11 months after making his debut in Trenton.

Trenton moved to Sunbury, Pennsylvania, for the 1951 season. Minor-league baseball returned to Trenton in 1994, replacing London, Ontario, as a Detroit Tigers affiliate. Mays became the third player overall with Trenton ties and the first by the baseball writers’ vote to be inducted into the National Baseball Hall of Fame.38

Mays returned to Hagerstown on August 9, 2004. The Frederick News-Post’s Joshua R. Smith wrote: “There was a large reception at the Clarion Hotel. When he was introduced by Suns General Manager Kurt Landes, a green curtain parted and Mays emerged, tipping his Giants cap before sitting down to hearty applause. Mays then spoke, telling the audience he was glad he returned, so he could see what the town was all about. ‘Before I start crying,’ he said, ‘I better pass for a while,’ motioning to Landes. Mays then lifted his glasses and dabbed tears as the fans rose again.”39

Landes made two announcements before going to Hagerstown Municipal Stadium. Mays’ Giants uniform number 24 would be retired and Memorial Boulevard would be renamed Willie Mays Way.40 Smith wrote that “Mays arrived in a white Buick, and the anxious crowd cheered when he opened the door to step out. ‘I didn’t really think I would get the ovation I received today,’ Mays said. ‘It’s wonderful.’ Moments later, still wearing his suit jacket, Mays fired a strike for the game’s ceremonial first pitch. Just inside the gate to the field, the mayor’s wife, Gann Breichner, talked about how this was the best day of her husband’s career. She said she knew Mays would return to Hagerstown if he was approached correctly. ‘He’s a man with a big heart,’ she said.”41

Allen Barra wrote in his book, Mickey and Willie: Mantle and Mays, The Parallel Lives of Baseball’s Golden Age: “It was all the same to him where he played, but he had one objection to Trenton: the league was Class-B. No one could ever be certain how the Negro Leagues stacked up to the different levels of white minor leagues, but the Barons, Willie told Charlie Einstein, played better baseball than he saw at Trenton (and probably baseball as good as he later saw in Triple A). ‘No one really got to know how good the players were in the Negro League since the press’ – meaning, of course, the white press – ‘never covered the games. But I knew I was so much richer from it. I didn’t realize that my leaving was another nail in the coffin of all-black baseball.’”42

Genovese said after Mays played for him in 1950: “Junior is the best-looking young player I’ve seen in many a day. I played in Louisville when Duke Snider was at St. Paul and always thought Duke would become a tremendous hitter. Willie doesn’t have Duke’s power, but he can do everything else better. I believe he has the strongest, most accurate arm in baseball. I have not seen Carl Furillo, but I cannot believe any human can out-throw Mays. It’s a low line strike every time, no matter how far out he may be. Mays in time will be an outstanding hitter. He hits straight away most of the time, and while you would not call him a real power hitter, he is always getting a piece of the ball, and sometimes will hit it a helluva ways. He hasn’t seen any pitching yet, because he was too good for our league, but I predict wherever he goes he will, in a short while, learn to hit pitching.”43

STEVEN M. GLASSMAN has been a SABR member since 1994 and is the secretary of the Connie Mack-Dick Allen Chapter. He wrote articles for Greatest Comeback Games and Baseball’s Biggest Blowout Games. Steven also contributed articles for the SABR Convention Games Project and the Century Committee for the 1921 season. Altogether, he has written six Games Project articles. Steven also wrote eight SABR Convention articles, most recently “The Hidden Potato Trick” (SABR 50). The Temple University graduate in sport and recreation management is currently the director of sports information at Manor College in Jenkintown, Pennsylvania. Steven is also an entertainment staff member/phanstormer for the Philadelphia Phillies, statistics crew member for the Trenton Thunder, and game day staff member for the Trenton Terror. He also serves as first-base coach/scorekeeper for his summer league softball team. Steven was also certified Microsoft Office Word 2016. He has attended Phillies games since the 1970s. Born in Philadelphia, Steven lives in Warminster, Pennsylvania.

 

SOURCES

In addition to the sources mentioned in the Notes, the author referred to https://www.baseball-reference.com/ and https://www.retrosheet.org/ for box scores, play-by-plays, and other pertinent information.

 

NOTES

1  Montague was a Giants scout in 1942-1943 and 1946-1981.

2  Pompez previously recommended Monte Irvin and Hank Thompson to the Giants.

3  John Saccoman. “Willie Mays,” SABR BioProject, https://sabr.org/bioproj/person/willie-mays/.

4  Saccoman.

5  “Giants Outbid Five Clubs for Mays, Negro Prospect,” The Sporting News, July 5, 1951: 41.

6  Clay Felker, “Mays Dynamite at Bat, Magnet in Field,” The Sporting News, August 15, 1951: 3.

7  Willie Mays with Lou Sahadi, Say Hey: The Autobiography of Willie Mays (New York: Pocket Books, 1988), 40.

8  Mays with Sahadi, 41.

9  Mays with Sahadi, 43.

10 Jason Aronoff, Going, Going … Caught! (Jefferson, North Carolina: McFarland and Company, Inc., 2009), 152.

11 Tom McCarthy. Baseball in Trenton (Charleston, South Carolina: Arcadia Publishing, 2003), 31.

12 Academy of Achievement, “Willie Mays Biography – Academy of Achievement,” accessed February 26, 2023. https://achievement.org/achiever/willie-mays/#interview.

13 Mays with Sahadi, 43.

14 James S. Hirsch, Willie Mays: The Life, The Legend (New York: Scribner, 2010), 66.

15 Mays with Sahadi, 43.

16 Mays with Sahadi, 44-45.

17 Randolph Linthurst, “Willie Mays’ First Season,” https://sabr.org/journal/article/willie-mays-first-season/. This article was originally in SABR’s Baseball Research Journal in 1974.

18 Aronoff.

19 Willie Mays and John Shea, 24 (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 2020), 53.

20 Mays and Shea, 53.

21 Mays with Sahadi, 46. According to his Sporting News player contract card, Fernandez joined Trenton on June 29, 1950, went on the disabled list on July 20, was reinstated on July 31, and was released on September 18.

22 Hirsch, 68-69.

23 Saccoman.

24 Aronoff.

25 Jacob Kaplan, “‘Oh-for-Maryland’: When Willie Mays Said Hey to Hub City,” Boundary Stories, June 22, 2017, https://boundarystones.weta.org/2017/06/22/oh-maryland-when-willie-mays-said-hey-hub-city.

26 Hirsch, 69.

27 Hirsch, 69.

28 Hirsch, 69.

29 Mays with Sahadi, 43-44.

30 Mays with Sahadi, 45-46.

31 Mays with Sahadi, 47.

32 Mays with Sahadi, 47.

33 Joe King, “New Spirit on Club as Mays Marches Back From Army,” The Sporting News, February 24, 1954: 5.

34 Adam Hyzdu (1996), Dernell Stenson (1998), Raul Gonzalez (1999), Zoilo Almonte (2012), and Trey Amburgey (2018) are Trenton outfielders who were voted to the Eastern League Postseason All-Star team.

35 Rodin was in the same outfield with Mays, playing one inning with him on September 12, 1954, vs. the St. Louis Cardinals. He entered the game as a defensive replacement for Mays for the final three innings against the Brooklyn Dodgers at Ebbets Field on September 21, 1954. Rodin pinch-hit for Mays and remained in the game for the final six innings at the next day’s game.

36 Mays with Sahadi, 47.

37 Mays with Sahadi, 47.

38 These are the Hall of Fame inductees who have a connection to Trenton: Bill McKechnie (1962 Veterans Committee) was the Trenton Giants general manager in 1950. Goose Goslin (1968 Veterans) was the player-manager of the Trenton Senators from 1939 through 1941. Walt Alston (1983 Veterans) was the player-manager of the Trenton Packers in 1944 and 1945. Frank Grant (2006 Veterans) played second base for the 1889 Cuban Giants of the independent Middle States League. Derek Jeter (2020 BBWAA) played five games for the Trenton Thunder (New York Yankees) as part of a rehabilitation assignment from July 7 to July 11, 2003, and two games from July 2 to July 3, 2011. Bus Saidt broadcast Trenton Giant games on WBUD from 1947 to 1950. He began working for the Trentonian in 1964 and then the Trenton Times in 1967. He was posthumously given the 1992 BBWAA Career Excellence Award.

39 Joshua R. Smith. “Willie Says Hey to Hagerstown,” Frederick (Maryland) News-Post, August 10, 2004, https://www.fredericknewspost.com/archives/willie-says-hey-to-hagerstown/article_75611b9e-9ea3-5eae-86b8-8802d49cec91.html.

40 Mays wore uniform number 12 for Trenton. Jackie Robinson’s uniform number 42 was universally retired in 1997. It not known if Hagerstown retired any more numbers after Mays’ in 2004. The retired number is on the right-field wall.

41 Smith.

42 Allan Barra, Mickey and Willie: Mantle and Mays, The Parallel Lives of Baseball’s Golden Age (New York: Crown Publishing Group, 2013), 112-113.

43 Joe King, “Willie Changes Giants’ Gloom into Grins,” The Sporting News, February 24, 1954: 5-6.