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I played with the Birmingham Black Barons. I was making 500 at 14. That was a lot of money in those days.
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
Barons
Birmingham
Played
Days
Making
Black
Money
More quotes by Willie Mays
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
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
When I'm not hitting, I don't hit nobody. But, when I'm hitting, I hit anybody.
Willie Mays
Defense to me is the key to playing baseball.
Willie Mays
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
Every time I look at my pocketbook, I see Jackie Robinson.
Willie Mays
I don't compare 'em, I just catch 'em.
Willie Mays
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
I was very fortunate to play sports. All the anger in me went out. I had to do what I had to do. If you stay angry all the time, then you really don't have a good life.
Willie Mays
I think I was the best baseball player I ever saw.
Willie Mays
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
Willie Mays
I think I was programmed to do good things when I came into the majors. I knew how to play.
Willie Mays
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
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
What you are thinking, what shape your mind is in, is what makes the biggest difference of all.
Willie Mays
I don't rate them, I just hit them.
Willie Mays
That's how easy baseball was for me. I'm not trying to brag or anything, but I had the knowledge before I became a professional baseball player to do all these things and know what each guy would hit.
Willie Mays
I didn't teach you that. Catch the ball with your glove.
Willie Mays
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
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