MLB power rankings: Top 30 nicknames of all-time

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Aug 19, 2016; San Francisco, CA, USA; San Francisco Giants Hall of Famer Willie Mays center and Larry Baer right CEO of the Giants share a laugh with singer Tony Bennett as they celebrated his 90th birthday which took place earlier in the week with a copy of the new game winning flag named after his hit song ” I left My Hart in San Francisco” that will fly outside AT&T Park after every Giants win. Mandatory Credit: Lance Iversen-USA TODAY Sports /

9. Willie Mays: The Say Hey Kid

Willie Mays recently had a birthday. It’s been a long time since he last played in the big leagues, but he remains one of the best all-around players the MLB has ever seen. Mays collected 3,283 career hits, 660 career home runs, and 1,903 career runs batted in.

He was a 24-time All-Sar, 12-time gold glove recipient, two-time NL MVP, won the 1954 NL MVP and was inducted into the National Baseball Hall of Fame in 1979 on the first ballot. The long-time center fielder for the New York/San Francisco Giants also has an all-time nickname: The Say Hey Kid.

This one-of-a-kind nickname is synonymous with Mays from his inability as a younger player to remember his teammates’ names during spring training. He as always saying things like Say who? or Say what? or anything of that variety. That’s how people eventually got to Say Hey.

Sure, he had other nicknames like Buck and Cap during his playing career, but The Say Hey Kid is the one that stuck. Given that the nickname derives from an expression he used to say, it is almost impossible to imitate. The only player to have tried was outfielder Jason Heyward, only because his last name kind of made it work.

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