Willie Mays Birthday

[jgannon]

Happy Birthday to the great Willie Mays! One of the greatest of 'em all!!

I was lucky to have caught him a couple of times - once as a Giant, and at least one time as a Met, although it may have been more.

The first time I saw him, I went with my best friend, his brothers, and his Dad, to Shea to catch the Giants play the Mets, as I remember in August, 1971. We were a little bit late, but we got there early in the game. Willie struck out every time that day, at least as I remember it!

But then when I saw him at Shea again as a Met, he hit a home run over the left centerfield wall. I just can't remember if this was during a Mayor's Trophy game against the Yankees or a regular season one. As I'm writing this, I'm pretty sure it was during a regular season game, and that I saw him play then as a Met at least twice.

My first card of Willie was a 1968 card. Don't have it now, unfortunately, but I still have a lot of his cards.

Here are a couple that I saved from my collection as a kid:


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