The demise of MLB legend Willie Mays has provoked an outporing of sorrow as followers, analysts, and former gamers recount their favourite reminiscences of the “Say Hey Child.”
Mays died Tuesday on the age of 93, two days earlier than he was to be honored at Rickwood Area in Birmingham, Alabama — the place the San Francisco Giants, for whom Mays performed most of his profession, will play the Chicago Cubs on the oldest subject in skilled baseball. However that sport will now have a somber tinge about it, as tributes proceed to pour in for one among baseball’s greatest-ever gamers.
Barry Bonds “past devastated”
One of the vital distinguished and poignant tributes to Mays on Tuesday got here from his godson — Barry Bonds. A Giants icon himself, Bonds took to Instagram to share his heartfelt — if not heartbreaking — tribute to Mays, whose professional profession started within the Negro American League through the Forties, when he performed at Rickwood Area.
“You helped form me to be who I’m as we speak,” Bonds wrote. “Thanks for being my godfather and at all times being there.”
Bonds, MLB’s all-time residence run chief with 762, handed Mays (660 homers) on his method to the highest of the dingers chart in 2007. Mays was a teammate of Barry‘s father, Bobby, in San Francisco between 1968 and 1971, and their friendship endured all through the youthful Bonds’ childhood — and as he turned a seven-time NL MVP.
The lack of Mays is a large one for baseball, and few are more likely to really feel it as viscerally as Bonds — who shared a decent, lifelong connection to a person many contemplate to be the game’s most full participant ever.
