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Few in baseball history are as revered as Willie Mays, a true 5-tool superstar whose dominance across a 23-year career earned him a spot in the inner circle of the Hall of Fame
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As a NY Giant, Mays routinely spent his mornings playing stickball with his Harlem neighbors, then would buy the kids ice cream before strolling over to the Polo Grounds to put on another show
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Nothing exemplified Mays' grace better than his signature basket catches, which he pulled off with an effortless finesse
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Mays delivered the ultimate basket catch in Game 1 of the '54 WS, a highlight so instantly classic, it¡¯s known simply as "The Catch"
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Mays earned MVP votes each season from 1954-66 and tallied an unprecedented 70 or more extra-base hits each year during that 13-year run
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A plate of ribs left Mays with an upset stomach when he woke up on April 30, 1961, but he shrugged it off to become the 7th player in AL/NL history to hit 4 homers in a game
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Mays remains the only player in AL/NL history with both 50+ homers in a season (1955) and 20+ triples in a season (1957). 10 years after his 1st 50-HR season, he hit a career-high 52
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Mays became the 5th player in AL/NL history to join the 500-homer club in 1965, the last of his 2 MVP seasons, and he would reach the 600-homer plateau 4 years later
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Mays, who picked up his 3,000th hit 3 years before retiring, is the only player in AL/NL history with at least 3,000 hits, a .300 average, 300 homers and 300 steals
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His days as an MVP candidate were through, but Mays homered in his Mets debut after a May 1972 trade, and his final career hit in Game 2 of the next season¡¯s World Series plated the winning run
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With his 1979 induction, Mays became just the 9th first-ballot Hall of Famer in baseball history
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For his 90th birthday, the Giants treated Mays to a ride around the warning track in a white and baby blue 1956 Oldsmobile as he received a standing ovation
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In 2021, the Giants Community Fund created the Willie Mays Scholars, a college prep and scholarship initiative that benefits San Francisco-based Black students