Say hey! Willie Mays here. I was quite a phenomenal batter
during my career, amassing over 3,200 hits, walloping 660 homers, driving in over 1,900 runs, and finishing with a career batting average above .300.
You might be surprised, then, to learn that I started my professional career by going 0-12 at the plate before collecting my first hit: a home run. During my career, I would hit an additional 17 home runs off this same pitcher (the most I hit off of any hurler).
Can you identify this hall-of-fame southpaw?
Pictured: Willie Mays, card #90 in the 1954 Topps set. Said Joe DiMaggio, "There has never been a perfect ball player. Willie Mays came closest to perfection."
Warren Spahn, of course.
Posted by: Bravesfan | June 26, 2010 at 12:39 PM
Too easy, right?
Source material here (1951):
http://www.nationalpastime.com/site/index.php?fact_day=28&fact_month=05
Posted by: Tim Zinnecker | June 26, 2010 at 01:07 PM
One of my greatest childhood memories was riding in an elevator with Willie Mays, who lived in the same apartment building in Riverdale as my Grandmother during his late-career stint with the Mets. I was too shy to ask for an autograph. But he did give me a nice smile.
Posted by: Eric Fink | June 27, 2010 at 07:29 PM
I rode in an elevator with Barry Bonds and his lawyer as they headed upstairs to a hearing to enforce his pre-nup. Bonds was wearing a $2,000 Armani blazer and plenty of gold jewlery -- which, I thought, was not the best look when trying to cut his ex-wife out of money. (I know, this anecdote doesn't have the charm of the Willie Mays one, but it's all I got.)
Posted by: John Steele | June 28, 2010 at 07:38 AM
One of my greatest childhood memories was riding in an elevator with Willie Mays, who lived in the same apartment building in Riverdale as my Grandmother during his late-career stint with the Mets. I was too shy to ask for an autograph. But he did give me a nice smile.
Posted by: Cheap Jerseys | July 30, 2010 at 09:36 AM
well you write his homeruns, why dont you write his strikes and outs?
Posted by: Baseball Jerseys | September 28, 2010 at 06:31 AM