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
People
Black
Telling
Felt
Understood
Didn
Comfortable
Kids
Grew
Ball
Matter
Playing
Enjoyed
Made
Issues
Balls
Always
Whether
Issue
Never
White
Played

More quotes by Willie Mays

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Congratulations to Alex Rodriguez on his 660th home run, milestones in baseball are meant to be broken and I wish him continued success throughout his career.
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I think I was programmed to do good things when I came into the majors. I knew how to play.
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I don't rate them, I just hit them.
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What's tough is being good every day.
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The greatest challenge I think is adjusting to not playing baseball. The reason for that is I had to come out of baseball and come into the business world, not being a college graduate, not being educated to come into the business world the way I should have.
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I didn't teach you that. Catch the ball with your glove.
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Maybe I was born to play ball. Maybe I truly was.
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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.
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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
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When I'm not hitting, I don't hit nobody. But, when I'm hitting, I hit anybody.
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In 1950, when the Giants signed me, they gave me $15,000. I bought a 1950 Mercury. I couldn't drive, but I had it in the parking lot there, and everybody that could drive would drive the car. So it was like a community thing
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The catch off Bobby Morgan (a backhanded grab of the Brooklyn Dodger's line drive in September 1951 at Ebbets Field) in Brooklyn was the best catch I ever made. Jackie Robinson and (Giants manager) Leo Durocher were the first people I saw when I opened my eyes
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I think I was the best baseball player I ever saw.
Willie Mays
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Yes, I had to learn how to live life outside, but I had so many people help me.
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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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Every time I look at my pocketbook, I see Jackie Robinson.
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 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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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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It isn't hard to be good from time to time in sports. What is tough, is being good every day.
Willie Mays