BIRMINGHAM, Ala. (AP) — Willie Mays gave a message to his longtime friend Dusty Baker just a day before he died.
Mays, who died Tuesday afternoon at 93 years old, knew that he wouldn’t be able to make the trip to Birmingham, Alabama, for a week of festivities honoring the contributions that he and other Negro Leaguers have made to baseball. But he wanted Baker to share a message to the city he long called home.
“Birmingham, I wish I could be with you all today,” said Mays’ good friend and adviser Jeff Bleich, reading the statement at a ceremony Wednesday honoring Mays’ life and career. “This is where I’m from. I had my first pro hit here at Rickwood as a Black Baron. And now this year, some 76 years later, that hit finally got counted in the record books. I guess some things take time. But I always think better late than never.”
Mays also sent an antique clock with his picture on it to the city of Birmingham. Baker was not feeling well, Bleich said, so he was not at the ceremony.
“Time changes things,” Mays continued in his note. “Time heals wounds. And that’s a good thing. I had some of the best times of my life in Birmingham. So I want you to have this clock to remember those times with me, and to remember all the other players who were lucky enough to play here together.”
The ceremony took place in downtown Birmingham just miles from Rickwood Field, where Mays’ unforgettable career began. Bleich joined Birmingham Mayor Randall Woodfin and San Francisco Giants CEO Larry Baer in giving speeches in Mays’ honor, standing in front of a grand mural display of the former Giants center fielder.
It’s an enchanting depiction of the electrifying “Say Hey Kid,” showing Mays beaming with his hands resting on his knees, his bevy of athletic accomplishments painted around him.
The artwork was created by artist Chuck Styles, who said he wanted to capture Mays’ humanity.
“I knew I wanted to showcase him in a way that everybody knew him for,” Styles said, “and that was his smile.”
Other tributes to Mays, born in Westfield, Alabama, near Birmingham, poured in all over the country on Wednesday, including from President Joe Biden.
“Like so many others in my neighborhood and around the country, when I played Little League, I wanted to play center field because of Willie Mays,” Biden said in a statement. “It was a rite of passage to practice his basket catches, daring steals, and command at the plate — only to be told by coaches to cut it out because no one can do what Willie Mays could do.”
