Willie Mays
From The Met Wiki
Willie Mays is one of Major League Baseball's all-time great players. In 2,992 games over 22 seasons, he had 3,283 hits, 2,062 runs scored, 660 home runs, 1,903 runs batted in. Mays played for the New York/San Francisco Giants from 1951 until he became a New York Met in 1972.
During the '72 season, Mays joined the Mets in a trade that sent pitcher Charlie Williams to San Francisco on May 11. He played for the team through its 1973 pennant-winning season. In his 135 games as a member of the Mets, Willie got 96 hits for 159 total bases and drove in 44 runs.
On May 14, 1972, Mays made his debut as a Met. He became the hero of the day with a fifth-inning home run that gave the Mets a 5-4 victory over his former Giants team at Shea Stadium. At Philadelphia on May 21, Willie hit a two-run homer off Steve Carlton in the eighth inning for a 4-3 Mets win. Mays hit a two-run homer in his first game back in San Francisco in a 3-1 Mets triumph over the Giants on July 21. He also had a homer and a pair of run-scoring singles in the Mets' 6-1 victory over the Cubs on August 4 at Shea.
In his final major league season of '73, Mays appeared in 66 games and hit 6 home runs. He played in his 24th All-Star Game (at Kansas City) and his fourth World Series during the year. On April 7, Willie got an RBI single in the ninth inning to give the Mets a 3-2 win over the Phillies at Shea. He had a three-run double in the Mets' 5-3 victory at Pittsburgh on June 22. Mays drove in the last two runs of a seven-run ninth inning for an 8-7 Mets win on July 17 at Atlanta. He hit a three-run homer in a 7-3 Mets win over the Cardinals at Shea on August 3. Willie hit his 660th and final career home run in the Mets' 2-1 loss in 10 innings to the Reds on August 17 at Shea. Against the Padres at Shea on August 29, he got the last regular season hit of his career with a run-scoring single in a 3-0 Mets win.
Mays had an RBI single and a run scored in the Mets' 7-2 victory over the Reds in Game 5 of the '73 National League Championship Series. He singled to drive in a run that put the Mets ahead to stay in a 10-7 win in 12 innings at Oakland in Game 2 of the '73 World Series. Willie made his final major league appearance in Game 3 of the Series on October 16 at Shea.
In 1974, Mays became a coach for the Mets. He was a member of the team's staff until 1979, the same year in which he was inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame.
