MLB pays tribute to Willie Mays and the Negro Leagues
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Giants players near a bus used by the Birmingham Black Barons. Photo: Carlos Avila Gonzalez/San Francisco Chronicle
Major League Baseball paid tribute on Thursday to the Negro Leagues and San Francisco Giants legend Willie Mays, who passed away Tuesday at the age of 93.
Driving the news: MLB honored Mays and the Negro Leagues during the Giants game against the St. Louis Cardinals as the teams played at Rickwood Field in Birmingham, Alabama, where the "Say Hey Kid" got his start.
- Rickwood Field, the oldest professional ballpark in the country, was home to the Negro Leagues' Birmingham Black Barons, where Mays began his professional career in 1948.
- The game had already been planned before Mays' death.
Context: Mays was the oldest living baseball Hall of Famer and one of the first Black players to join the MLB.
What they're saying: Two days before the game, the late icon said in a statement he wished he could have come, but he couldn't move as well as he used to.
- "Rickwood's been part of my life for all of my life," Mays said. "Since I was a kid. "
- Mays, who went to high school about 8 miles away from Birmingham, said "the first big thing [he] ever put [his] mind to was to play at Rickwood Field."
The bottom line: "It wasn't a dream. It was something I was going to do. I was going to work hard to be one of the Birmingham Black Barons and play ball at Rickwood Field. That's what I did. It was my start. My first job. You never forget that. Rickwood Field is where I played my first home game, and playing there was it — everything I wanted."