His passing this week brought back youthful memories. He began playing major league baseball in 1951, the year I was born, and he retired in 1973, the year I graduated college, married, and transitioned into adulthood. He was one of my childhood heroes. It wasn’t that I was a big baseball fan, but my grandfather Pa Fen was. I remember on numerous occasions him kiddingly asking me who I thought was the better player: Mickey Mantle or Willie Mays? Shockingly to Pa Fen, my consistent, enthusiastic reply was “The Say Hey Kid. He’s the best!”
The origin of that “Say Hey Kid” moniker is most often attributed to Barney Kremenko, sportswriter for the New York Journal, who wrote that he coined the reference because of May’s way of enthusiastically greeting his teammates. “Mays would blurt, ‘Say who, ‘Say what,’ ‘Say where, ‘Say hey,” Kremenko recalls. So, in my paper, I tabbed him the ‘Say Hey Kid.’ It stuck.”
His plaque at the Baseball Hall of Fame states that Willie Howard Mays, Jr., “The Say Hey Kid,” was one of baseball’s most colorful and exciting stars. He excelled in all phases of the game. Third in homers (660), runs (2,062) and total bases (6,066); seventh in hits (3,283) and RBI’s (1,903). First in putouts by an outfielder (7,095). First to top 300 homers and 300 steals. He led the League in batting once, slugging five times, and home runs and steals four seasons. He was also voted the National League MVP in 1954 and 1965. He played in 24 All-Star Games—a record.
The stories of his legendary baseball prowess are as numerous as the longevity of his career. From his miraculous over-the-back catches to his countless stolen bases, to his hitting four home runs in one game, his countless feats were lauded by fans worldwide, and by kids playing on sandlot fields across our nation.
Willie’s inspiring stories were not limited to playing baseball. I came across this unexpected article this week while researching for this Inspiration. It is a wonderful testament to the enduring power of friendship. I hope you enjoy it.
Willie Mays was in the prime of his career in 1963, but his finances were a mess. The San Francisco Giants’ star outfielder had plunged into debt amid divorce proceedings, and even with more than half of his career home runs under his belt, was staring down bankruptcy.
Then he met Jacob Shemano.
Shemano was a banker whose kid, Gary, was shagging fly balls during warmups one day at Candlestick Park. They connected in the locker room afterward, where Mays asked Shemano to help him smooth out his money problems. Shemano agreed on one condition: He wouldn’t take a dime for his work.
What began with Shemano rescuing Mays from bankruptcy evolved into a close relationship that spanned generations and made Mays an honorary member of sorts not just in the Shemano family, but also in the San Francisco Jewish community. In 1964, Mays told the San Francisco Examiner that the Shemanos were “the best friends I’ve ever had in my life.”
“Anything we did, Willie was here.” Gary Shemano, now 79, recalled hours after hearing of Willie’s passing. “He was close to the Jewish community because of my dad.”
To some it might have seemed an unlikely pairing: Shemano, a Conservative Jew who had immigrated from Russia as a toddler, and Mays, a Black man born and reared in coal mining, rural Alabama. But both had overcome the odds against them as minorities to find success. Shemano was one of the first Jews in California to receive a charter to run a bank. Mays played in the Negro Leagues as a teenager prior to Major League Baseball’s integration.
Shemano had a civil rights bent—he insisted on hiring Black tellers for his bank—and in Mays, he found a stylistic peer. Shemano favored green velvet shirts and Mays steered a pink Cadillac around the Bay—including on trips to his Jewish friend’s home.
“The kids in the neighborhood all knew when he was at our home,” Gary recalled.
The founder of Golden Gate National Bank, Jacob Shemano did squeeze something out of his new friend: Mays became a celebrity ambassador for the business. He was universally popular, a star in the field and at the plate, a perennial winner with a carefree smile.
The slugging centerfielder was helpful when Gary and his brother Ritchie took dates to the ballpark, too. They’d call him up and give him the girl’s name in advance, and Mays would toss them a signed ball as he ran onto the field.
When Gary enrolled at the University of Southern California, Mays would swing by the dorms if the Giants were in town playing the Dodgers.
“Let’s go shopping, get your ass out of bed,” Gary recalled Mays telling him. “We had so much fun.”
As good as he was at the bat—Mays retired behind only Babe Ruth for career home runs, and his 660 still ranks sixth today—Gary described Mays as an awful golfer. The elder Shemano taught the slugger how to play.
“He (Mays) said, “Jake, how can this game be so tough when the ball is not moving?’” Gary recalled.
The relationship ultimately ingratiated Mays with the Jewish community. Shemano once took Mays on a visit to the local Jewish Home, Gary said, and Mays later made visiting there a habit.
He appeared at local Jewish events so often that Mays was eventually invited into the local Concordia-Argonaut Club—a Jewish social club—as the first black member.
And while Mays frequented the Shemano home on holidays, there was one Jewish delicacy he couldn’t handle.
“He loved my mother until she made him eat some smoked salmon on a bagel for Thanksgiving and he couldn’t swallow it,” Gary said. “It was hysterical.”
Gary said that May’s short-term memory was fading when he last visited, about six months ago. There was a photo of Jacob Shemano, who died in 1979, and his wife, Rhoda, on his wall.
“The day that my grandmother died, my father’s mother, Willie called my dad,” Gary recalled. “He said, ‘I don’t know what to do for you, but you gonna go to the game tonight?’ My dad said, ‘Yeah.’ He says, ‘Well, I’m gonna try to do something for you at the game.’ He hit three home runs.”
–Written by Louis Keene, Staff Reporter for The Forward (June 19, 2024)
Just before the 1962 World Series—Mays’s Giants vs. Mantle’s Yankees—they were interviewed separately and unbeknownst to each other. Mays said that Mantle was the best player in all baseball, rating Mikey above himself. And, when the same question was posed to Mantle, he simply replied, “Willie’s the best.”
RIP Say Hey Kid!
Have an AWE-full Weekend!
William “Bill” Bacque