Welcome inside studio three.
I'm Matt Vasgersian.
Today is a very sad day for
baseball.
It's a sad day for the nation as
the say, hey kid Willie Mays has
passed away.
Mays has been considered for
years.
The best player in baseball
history named a 24 all star
games, a rookie of the year
award as well as two MV PS over
his illustrious career and he
did it all with a style and
flair that had never been seen
before on the diamond here now
is more on the life and legacy
of Willie Mays.
Number 24 in your program.
Number one in your heart.
Wait mate, say, hey, straight
and at the plate, say hey, that
long before Willie Mays was a
national icon.
He was a 20 year old baseball
prodigy debuting with the New
York Giants.
It was 1951 the golden age of
baseball and Mays wasn't your
typical rookie.
He had played professionally in
the Negro Leagues since he was
just 16 years old and he brought
that league's exciting brand of
play with him to New York.
He could do everything on the
field run, hit, catch throw and
he did it all with style and
flair.
I felt that people pay their
money to come to the ballpark.
I must do something other than
just catch the ball.
I hit a home run.
He made casual basket catches to
delight the fans and famously
wore a hat that was one size too
small.
That way, it's never gonna stay
on fans like to see you go back
and pick up your hat.
They to see it come off your
head.
Willie Mays played like an
overgrown kid having the time of
his life and when the press
noticed his habit of forgetting
names and simply yelling to get
your attention.
They gave him a nickname.
The say, hey kid, what you going
to say, Willie Mays would win
national league rookie of the
year honors in 1951 and help the
Giants come from 13.5 down to
catch the Brooklyn Dodgers.
Setting up one of the most
famous moments in baseball
history.
One in which Mays who was on
deck at the time had a front row
seat for it.
When Bobby hit the home run, I
was the last guy to get to home
plate.
Everybody else is there shouting
, I'm saying my gut.
Even though the Giants luck
would run out in the World
Series, 1951 was a magical
beginning.
Few rookies have ever been as
popular with a fan base as
Willie Mays in New York City.
These kids grew up with me, they
knock on my window.
Uh I would go out play stickball
for about an hour, two hours and
Then I buy everybody ice creams.
Unfortunately, for Giants fans,
Mays would spend the next two
years in the army after being
drafted.
But when he returned in 1954
Mays and the Giants picked up
right where they left off the
say, hey, kid led the league in
batting and captured MV P honors
in that year's World Series.
Mays was the one making the
highlights as the Giants swept
the Indians that play would
become known simply as the catch
and attained an iconic place in
sports history.
Do you feel that was the
greatest catch you ever made?
There's the greatest I take that
you'll go along with that when
moment is attached to a truly
iconic player, Then it takes on
added meaning if Joe Jones makes
a back to the plate catch in the
World Series, it's still a great
play, but it's not Willie Mays
and therefore it doesn't stay in
the imagination.
More than six decades later, the
catch still resonates Willie
Mays again in a way, Willie Mays
became our Touchstone to a
bygone era.
A time preserved in grainy,
black and white.
The next World Series would be
the first broadcast in full
color.
And three years after that in
1958 came the unthinkable, the
Giants left New York City and
moved west to San Francisco to
all intents and purposes.
Willie Mays greatest player of
his time was starting all over
again.
Having to prove himself to a new
set of fans, San francisco Bill
will so high and they found out
that Uri was a human being,
strike out whatever and they can
understand every time I went to