Quote

I always enjoyed playing ball, and it didn't matter to me whether I played with white kids or black. I never understood why an issue was made of who I played with, and I never felt comfortable, when I grew up, telling other people how to act

Willie Mays

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Willie Mays
Age: 93
Born: 1931
Born: May 6
Baseball Player
Jefferson County
Alabama
Willie Howard Mays Jr.
Willie Howard Mays
The Say Hey Kid
Kids
Grew
Ball
Matter
Playing
Enjoyed
Made
Issues
Balls
Always
Whether
Issue
Never
White
Played
People
Black
Telling
Felt
Understood
Didn
Comfortable

More quotes by Willie Mays

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When I was in Birmingham I used to go to a place called Redwood Field. I used to get there for a two o'clock game. Where can you make this kind of money playing sports? It was just a pleasure to go out and enjoy myself and get paid for it.
Willie Mays
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I was a baseball player, I taught baseball, and all of a sudden I was in the business world. Now I used the baseball world to talk about their product. Not too much, just enough to keep going. Just be yourself and you'll never have a problem. That's what I did.
Willie Mays
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I don't rate them, I just hit them.
Willie Mays
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I remember the last season I played. I went home after a ballgame one day, lay down on my bed, and tears came to my eyes. How can you explain that? It's like crying for your mother after she's gone. You cry because you love her. I cried, I guess, because I loved baseball, and I knew I had to leave it.
Willie Mays
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What you are thinking, what shape your mind is in, is what makes the biggest difference of all.
Willie Mays
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I think I was the best baseball player I ever saw.
Willie Mays
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I don't compare 'em, I just catch 'em.
Willie Mays
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Yes, I had to learn how to live life outside, but I had so many people help me.
Willie Mays
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Baseball is a game, yes. It is also a business. But what is most truly is is disguised combat. For all its gentility, its almost leisurely pace, baseball is violence under wraps.
Willie Mays
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When I got to professional ball I used to play 150 games every year. It depends on how many games there was.
Willie Mays
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I would try and help everybody, because the game was so easy for me. It was just like walking in the park.
Willie Mays
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I'm a very lucky guy. I had so many people help me over the years that I never had many problems. If I had a problem, I could sit down with someone and they would explain the problem to me, and the problem become like a baseball game
Willie Mays
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Baseball is a game, yes. It is also a business.
Willie Mays
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Defense to me is the key to playing baseball.
Willie Mays
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I'm not the type of guy to go out and just say, 'Hey, I'm raising my fist to do this and do that.' I don't think I'm that type of guy. I wasn't a leader the way other people may have wanted me to be.
Willie Mays
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I don't mean to be bashful, but I was
Willie Mays
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I was very blessed with a good body. Never got hurt. Never was in the hospital. The only time I was in the hospital was when I would get exhausted a little bit, and go in for a check-up or something.
Willie Mays
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When I'm not hitting, I don't hit nobody. But, when I'm hitting, I hit anybody.
Willie Mays
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Youngsters of Little League can survive undercoaching a lot better than overcoaching.
Willie Mays
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And my father didn't have money for me to go to college. And at that particular time they didn't have black quarterbacks, and I don't think I could have made it in basketball, because I was only 5′ 11. So I just picked baseball.
Willie Mays